Climate Change, as some here probably already surmise, is close to the top of my list of major concerns. It doesn’t seem to take much precedent at this bar but I keep hammering away from time to time anyway.
The prime reason, I am convinced, that there is so little concern is the highly effective PR campaign by “The Merchants of Doubt”; i.e., those who are profiting from the public not knowing the facts. Scientists are most often reserved, cautious and conservative in expressing the social and physical implications of their research and findings. This is not true of the Public Relations professionals in expressing the spin, and oftentimes lies that will further their clients agendas.
This idea is exemplified by the recent revelation that of the sixteen op-ed climate authors of the Wall Street Journal, only two have relatively significant climate research backgrounds and that:

“despite seven months of intense effort to recruit physicists to sign a politically motivated petition disputing anthropogenic climate change, a mere, 0.45% of the American Physical Society‘s 47,000 members signed on.”

For any here interested in further education on the climate issue (global warming) I highly recommend a daily check in with Climate Change; The Next Generation The format is somewhat different so click on the Year ->2012 and then the Month ->January, select a title and scroll down until you see the text.

Posted by: juannie | Jan 30 2012 19:33 utc | 3

Bits of news from Latin America:
http://en.mercopress.com/2012/01/30/venezuela-convenes-an-alba-summit-to-propose-creating-an-economic-space
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/21860-don-berna-claims-prove-uribe-govt-conspired-against-supreme-court-judge.html

Posted by: Maracatu | Jan 30 2012 23:19 utc | 5

‘For this is the view of the ruling class: “America is God. God’s Will be done.”
‘What they want is dominion over the world. They intend to have it. In pursuit of this aim, as they believe the necessity arises, they will destroy anyone and anything that stands in their way. To describe their behavior as insane is to miss the much more critical point, and to minimize the far greater danger. They know exactly what they’re doing. They’re hoping that you do not. To date, far too many people oblige them.’
Arthur Silber, via Chris Floyd, on drones over Iraq and what they mean.

Posted by: bevin | Jan 30 2012 23:50 utc | 7

re alexno,
There is no doubt that climate, which I have been intimately involved occupationally researching for the last twelve years (which incidentally, I recognize as being a fallacious argument from authority), is complicated. Literally thousands of meteorological and climate scientists have been researching the issue for decades but the efforts have been more intense over the last decade as the degree of the stakes involved have become apparent and known.
One of the favorite echo chamber talking points of the climate deniers is precisely your argument that climate modeling is “unscientific” and therefore invalid. This argument is absurd. Of course there are unknowns and climate and weather predictions are and in theory (because of their nonlinear or chaotic nature) never exactly correct but their accuracy is a measurable variable and have been improving substantially and steadily over the last decade. What the models are exceptionally excellent at are collecting known parameters and calculating outcomes based on sound scientific and engineering principles. Eg.
We can and have measured the CO2 buildup in the atmosphere,
the long wave radiative forcing from CO2 buildup in the atmosphere (the greenhouse effect),
the global average atmosphere and ocean temperatures,
the incoming and outgoing energy in the form of short wave and long wave radiation,
the partitioning of that energy into sensible heat, latent heat and ground heat flux,
the albedo (reflectance of the sun’s incoming radiation) (which is significantly decreasing in the Arctic with the sever and continuing loss of sea ice creating strong positive feedback),
and we can do the energy balance calculations with inputs from millions of global data points and see and measure quite accurately that:
the atmosphere, oceans, land and cryosphere are warming.
Now this isn’t just on my say so. Those “literally thousands of meteorological and climate scientists” that I referred to above are in 99% agreement. There is no real debate within the established scientific climate community. The only debate exists in the “fair and balanced” reporting community where fly by nights with no climate research credibility are given greater than equal time than those credible peer reviewed and active climate researchers. The point of my post was not to debate climate change (global warming) but to point out just how absurd and biased the climate change denier community is. And how they still get the majority of MSM attention thus distorting the public understanding of the issue.
Oh and to add to this there is now accelerating releases of huge plumes of methane (a greenhouse gas about 20% more effective in blocking outgoing long wave radiation) in the Arctic causing grave concerns within the climate community that we are about to or have already reached the tripping point of no return that could be “driving the fastest climate change trend recorded since about 34 million years ago, representing a critical climate threshold leading into uncharted territory and threatening the biosphere and human civilization”.
Global warming is not trivial. I will probably be departed this life before the effects are catastrophic but my children and grandchildren will be reaping the travesty of our generation’s failure to wake up and act now. Don’t take my word for it but please start to educate yourself beyond the lies and propaganda promulgated by the climate denial charlatans. Start by making a daily visit to Climate Change ( link corrected from my above post)

Posted by: juannie | Jan 31 2012 2:34 utc | 9

test.
Wierd, I’ve posted, the same post twice, before anna missed and $Uncle’s posts but neither has shown up. And I got the message my post had been posted on both. Hope they don’t both eventually show up as duplicate posts. Wonder if this one will show up?

Posted by: juannie | Jan 31 2012 3:13 utc | 11

Much more on Boykin in the MOA archives…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2012 3:26 utc | 13

re: “no-fly list” — does that mean that the US will send B-2 bombers and blow them to smithereens?
Probably not. I get it confused with “no-fly zone.”

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 31 2012 4:41 utc | 15

juannie@ 10
Give it a day’s time, I had the same happen yesterday, and I think b went in and manually posted mine today. If not, do try again as I’m interested…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2012 6:14 utc | 17

That link above should have been this:
Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper on Paramilitary Policing From WTO to Occupy Wall Street

We host a discussion on policing and the Occupy Wall Street movement with Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which helped organize calls among police chiefs on how to respond to the Occupy protests, and with Norm Stamper, the former police chief of Seattle, who recently wrote an article for The Nation magazine titled “Paramilitary Policing from Seattle to Occupy Wall Street.” “Trust me, the police do not want to be put in this position. And cities really need to ask themselves, is there another way to handle this kind of conflict?” Wexler says. Stamper notes, “There are many compassionate, decent, competent police officers who do a terrific job day in and day out. There are others who are, quote, ‘bad apples.’ What both of them have in common is that they ‘occupy,’ as it were, a system, a structure that itself is rotten. And I am talking about the paramilitary bureaucracy.” We are also joined by Stephen Graham, author of “Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism,” and by retired New York Supreme Court Judge Karen Smith, who worked as a legal observer Tuesday morning in New York after the police raided the Occupy Wall Street encampment. “I was there to take down the names of people who were arrested… As I’m standing there, some African-American woman goes up to a police officer and says, ‘I need to get in. My daughter’s there. I want to know if she’s OK.’ And he said, ‘Move on, lady.’ And they kept pushing with their sticks, pushing back. And she was crying. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he throws her to the ground and starts hitting her in the head,” says Smith. “I walk over, and I say, ‘Look, cuff her if she’s done something, but you don’t need to do that.’ And he said, ‘Lady, do you want to get arrested?’ And I said, ‘Do you see my hat? I’m here as a legal observer.’ He said, ‘You want to get arrested?’ And he pushed me up against the wall.”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2012 6:26 utc | 19

On climate change: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/
It’s happening.
On manufacturing Denialsaurs: Dr. Jeff Masters, has done a little detective work. It’s from late 2009, but his story starts here:
“In 1954, the tobacco industry realized it had a serious problem. Thirteen scientific studies had been published over the preceding five years linking smoking to lung cancer. With the public growing increasingly alarmed about the health effects of smoking, the tobacco industry had to move quickly to protect profits and stem the tide of increasingly worrisome scientific news. Big Tobacco turned to one the world’s five largest public relations firms, Hill and Knowlton, to help out.”
And as long as I’m re: addictive drugs…
“The story told to the public by the NIMH and by academic psychiatry is that psychiatric medications have greatly improved the lives of those diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses. Yet, even as our society has embraced the use of psychiatric medications during the past two decades, the number of people receiving government disability due to mental illness has more than tripled, from 1.25 million people to more than 4 million people.” Robert Whitaker _Anatomy of an Epidemic_
Mammon still accepts child sacrifices, even if medicated:
“In 1987, there were 16,200 children under eighteen years of age who received an SSI payment because they were disabled by a serious mental illness. Such children comprised only 5.5 percent of the 293,000 children on the disability rolls–mental illness was not, at that time, a leading cause of disability among the country’s children. But starting in 1990, the number of mentally ill children began to rise dramatically, and by the end of 2008, there were 561,569 such children on the SSI disability rolls. In the short span of twenty years, the number of disabled mentally ill children rose thirty-five fold. Mental illness is now the leading cause of disability in children…” Robert Whitaker _Anatomy of an Epidemic_

Posted by: no6ody | Jan 31 2012 13:36 utc | 21

I was purposely demonstrating ADD.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 31 2012 14:41 utc | 23

from reading GlennG’s Panetta piece. In his critique of Panetta’s interview with ScottPelley GG says Panetta lies about accused terrorists getting their day in court. That set me to reflecting, and I wonder whether I’d rather they knowingly lie and simply sell propaganda, or whether it isn’t more interesting if they don’t know they are lying.
Do they need to believe the system is fair to sleep at night? Or, do they not give a shit? Is this big ship of state gonna mangle a few dolphins in it’s propeller one way or another, we can’t cry, or lose sleep over some collateral damage? Either is problematic, one is delusional, the other risks laziness over these inevitable losses.
I don’t know, maybe I’m kinda autistic and unaware of it, but I really try to be earnest. I don’t fret petty white lies, though I honestly try to avoid even them. But, is everyone else simply faking it and just gaming the system? I used to have a funny mind screw when I’d try to bring back the 60′s, when somewhat out of my mind, I’d wonder if I was the big stick in the mud keeping the party from becoming an orgy. I thought is was consideration for my modesty that was keeping everyone so restrained. Sometimes I feel like just such a stick in the mud, cleaving to earnestness so.

Posted by: scottindallas | Jan 31 2012 14:56 utc | 25

Juannie, et al on Climate change
Rather than argue our ignorance on the issue of climate change, I DO care about the planet, and don’t want to pollute any more than necessary, and would like to mitigate what we can. So, my question for you is, what should we do? The autofleet is getting much more efficient, such that 70% of the problem comes now from industry. Further, about half of all pollution is from our utilities. I’m all for finding the most efficient (cost and pollution, and those overlap frequently) sources of power, and for reducing our usage.
So, really it seems wasting our time on the question of climate change is a waste of time–argue with that tautology. Let’s talk about solutions. More natural gas electrical generation, I support. I don’t think I’m impressed with the results of wind power, as it seems to be too inconsistent for large public service. For individual homes perhaps a combination of solar and wind make some sense.
In my mind, the most exciting thing sustainable energy are these new programs where firms are aggregating many individual homeowner’s green energy credits and leasing the panels out. It seems that if utilities could declare an easement on our rooftops, then perhaps we’d get solar panels on individual’s roofs–though the economic benefit would lie with the utility.
Anyway, let’s not debate the cause of climate change, let’s discuss how to reduce pollution, and improve efficiency. There’s no one opposed to those goals.

Posted by: scottindallas | Jan 31 2012 15:12 utc | 27

What should we do? Turn the damn lights off, I say. Too much useless urban lighting so that one can not even see the stars any more, unless one lives in the desert, which I do.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 31 2012 15:21 utc | 29

Reading Juan Cole on Syria this morning it’s hard not to be struck by his choice of words in describing civil unrest. Cole has picked up the U.S. word framing to be used with an unfriendly government as opposed to that favored for a friendly (usually puppet) government.
Syria: brutal regime, massacres, “another 29 persons killed,” rebels (at least they are no longer “protesters”), opposition, western (UN) intervention possible on the side of the resistance
as contrasted with the popular framing of Iraq and Afghanistan: struggling government, insurgents, extremists, terrorists, no casualty counts, bringing stability, counter-insurgency, need more time, etc.
We’ve heard this before with the aggression against Libya, which Cole strongly supported, and here we go again. So far Cole is sitting on the fence on Syria, except with his vocabulary.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 31 2012 15:56 utc | 31

Don, I like the idea of you as an Edward Abbey type crossed with an old gold prospector. Spent a bunch of time in NM and the Chisos Mtns. Love me some desert anarchy.

Posted by: scottindallas | Jan 31 2012 16:17 utc | 33

juannie, Re: lack of attention to global warming —
Our leaders may be ignoring global warming, but the bean counters at the insurance companies are paying quite a bit of attention. And costs of home insurance will be going up.

NPR reported Monday that home insurance premiums are going up across the board in response to the record number of tornadoes, floods, fires, blizzards and other heavy weather that hit the country in 2011.
The piece features insurance executives at major firms such as Allstate and State Farm saying they are raising rates as much as 10%.

This article does say the increases will be in direct response to the huge storm damages from last year, but other reports have stated insurance companies worldwide have been factoring in the likely effects of global warming on their underwriting.

Posted by: jawbone | Jan 31 2012 16:26 utc | 35

The nice thing about the desert is that there’s so much of it. I was doing some trail maintenance on the Pacific Crest Trail yesterday at 6,000 feet and we could see all the way east to the Salton Sea and the Chocolate Mountains behind it, a distance of fifty miles.
People say the desert is dead but it’s not. There are more varieties of plant and animal life in the desert than anywhere except the rain forests. There’s just not a lot of it, and much of the animal life isn’t about during the day. We usually have to be content in examining their scat to determine who was about on recent evenings. I heard some coyotes howling this morning. It’s eerie. (Definition of desert: less than 10 inches of precipitation annually.)
Whereas jungle plants have plenty of nourishment and compete for space and light, desert plants compete for nourishment. When they get lucky and sip a little water they conserve it. Therefore the small shiny leaves and spines — they don’t want to lose it. The barrel cactus has a skin like an accordion that expands when it gets water, then contracts. The ocotillo leafs out only after a rain, does some photosynthesis, perhaps even blossoms, then drops its little leaves until the next rain.
There must be one or two lessons for humans in there somewhere.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 31 2012 18:15 utc | 37

I like your attitude scott. And I agree; the question should be and is for me, “What more can we do?”
My first suggestion is educate ourselves as quickly and thoroughly as possible about the climate community’s scientific consensus about climate change and then help to educate our friends and the general public. We, meaning the general public, are almost totally misinformed about the issue. no6ody’s link @ #21, “Denialsarus: Dr. Jeff Masters” is an excellent entre. I think exposing the imposters (deniers) may be the best initial educational approach. They have perfected the tactics the PR industry learned creating doubt about tobacco’s toxicity. And then applied their techniques to denying DDT, acid rain, the ozone hole, and now climate change and CCD (honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder). Two excellent books on the subject are “Climate Cover-Up” brief review by James Hoggan (an honest and ethical PR firm owner who started out his research convinced the climate warming was a hoax but learned and publicized the truth about what he found) and “Merchants of DOUBT” review by Naomi Oreskes. I haven’t read “Doubt is their Product” but thanks to no6body’s link I now have it on order.
I agree that there is a lot that we as individuals and small scale communities can do. Turning off lights certainly is a good start if for no other reason it helps to heighten our awareness of the seriousness of the issue. As far as reducing CO2 emissions it is a pittance. For example, one super container ship in one year spews out more pollutants that: 50 million cars . Heavy industry’s pollution dwarfs whatever my contribution to lowering my carbon footprint could be; as you pointed out. I think a more efficacious approach would be to expose the major polluters and eliminate their ability and profit from their polluting practices and lying about it. Not to decry individual efforts. It’s all important and reduces our hypocrisy factor to be able to call the majors with a clear conscience and a lot of individual actions do add up.
There is however, I believe, an important question that may have to be answered before we can regroup and proceed into our future with a balanced and sustainable approach. Is modern civilization, especially industrial civilization sustainable? Derrick Jensen answers “no and never can be”. I’m not sure I completely buy into that premise but his argument is certainly powerful and compelling. And the evidence we behold of the world we presently inhabit lends credibility to that thesis. I think where Derrick goes with this is into the realm of small self-sustainable communities and I admit that that idea is appealing to me, in fact I have been advocating such with my intellectual and spiritual allies and friends for years, to no avail I must add. If we continue down the path of industrial capitalism is it, I fear, only an accelerating freight train with no brakes and heading for the abyss? I fear we have already reached the point where nothing can prevent the ultimate plunge. My hope/expectation is that enclaves of self-sufficient groups will survive to carry on. The climate factor now becomes a wild card as the direction and momentum seems to be carrying us into uncharted ecological territory. One ray of hope is that our species developed and survived in ecological conditions similar to these predictions over the last five million years. Ecological chaos and uncertainty were the conditions that shaped us into the species we are now.
Review, Humanity’s Descent: the consequence of ecological instability
and
Review, Eco Homo: How the human being emerged from the Cataclysmic history of the earth
Anyway I appreciate your contribution and thought provoking post.

Posted by: Juannie | Jan 31 2012 20:36 utc | 39

Hey b
samo samo as last night. I posted before Watson or annie and it hasn’t showed up even though I got the message:

Your comment has been posted. Post another comment
[[Posted by: Juannie| January 31, 2012 at 03:36 PM

Yeah, me too annie. I love NM and try to get there every winter. Our daughter was born there in the Mimbres Valley. Don’t think we’ll make it this year.

Posted by: Juannie | Jan 31 2012 21:09 utc | 41

Speaking of LTG Boykin…
Anti-Muslim general withdraws from West Point prayer breakfast…
Good Riddance, to bad rubbish…!

Posted by: CTuttle | Jan 31 2012 21:46 utc | 43

@10 – Uncle $cam
the sad thing is, he’s probably right. but he’s busy discrediting himself by chasing ghosts. the islamists haven’t so much been attacking us as defending themselves, and it’s hardly their fault that they can’t “fight fair” with all the latest technology that the US MIC has to offer. and the gays… jeeze, i can never understand why some churches can’t just either ignore them or agree to disagree. his ranting on it only makes me believe that it is made such an issue just to provoke people like Boykin to discredit them.
Boykin should ignore the gays and muslims. these are distractions meant to keep people busy, divided, and unaware of the real danger.

Posted by: Proton Soup | Feb 1 2012 6:59 utc | 45

Scott,
I posted a reply to your #27 last night referred to in my #40. I’ll wait until I see if b recovers it. Then if not I’ll repost in two pieces later today. You may notice my earlier double post because of the same occurrence.
But to sum up, I agree that we should be looking for solutions and like you my efforts are aimed at adjusting my lifestyle to that end. I welcome the discussion.
Later, one way or the other.

Posted by: Juannie | Feb 1 2012 11:54 utc | 47

Scott, my post from last night hasn’t appeared. I’ll try again but here is an interim reply to your last post.
Yes, ethanol is a scam to enrich ADM/Cargill et al. At the expense of forced subsidies from the American tax payer; and with larger carbon footprint than petroleum. Coal? I don’t have any firm ideas yet. It could be ok for centuries if managed with sustainability in mind. I’ve been reading that natural gas/propane is no better than petroleum when all factors are considered. Solar is questionable because of initial resource expenditure but I will eventually put a collector in my yard. Wind farms? I would also like a wind turbine in my yard but I don’t know enough about the overall impact to vote one way or the other on large wind farms. At present I wouldn’t block such a venture in my community. I’ll take wind farms but not nukes. Mass transit, bike lanes, and organic food producing landscapes in cities I embrace.
Whenever we contribute to an exponential growth system we inevitably hasten it’s and our own demise. Our specie’s voracious appetite for dominion over and more stuff to consume is a losing evolutionary tactic. Our flash in the evolutionary history of this planet may be just that, an infinitesimal blip in the continuum of an ongoing and fathomless time scale of cosmic evolution. Maybe Jensen is right on. If we want to continue in this evolutionary game we had better find a less dominionist and more cooperative way of being (my words, not Jensen’s). For my part I’m increasingly adopting a leaner and less exploitive lifestyle. I have no need for more stuff in my life and no need for extravagant consumption. In my youth I participated for all I could get but now I find such an attitude repulsive and irresponsible.

…we won’t be able to measure our impending doom, as once the data comes in, it will be too late.

First of all the data is coming in and it all substantiates the warming trend that climate scientists have been predicting. And saying we won’t be able to do anything is like saying that once I see an accident in the making on the highway, there is no corrective action that as the operator of my vehicle I can take to avoid or minimize effects of the accident. However, just as in the automobile case, the longer we take to act the less our chances of mitigating the effects.

…tend to dismiss the mitigating factors–one example is that humid water absorbs more energy, and changes the specific heat of the atmosphere. That too would lead to more rain, which also has a cooling effect… Probably why no one’s been able to develop an accurate model for the climate.

I don’t get my information from advocates for my position but from professional career scientists who research climate and publish their findings in peer reviewed in respected journals. Humid air contains more energy which is known as the latent heat of evaporation and that heat is released when water vapor condenses in clouds to produce liquid water. The released heat (energy) is what drives the build up of cumulonimbus (thunder heads). Rain has a cooling effect because it falls from a cooler height in the atmosphere and is thus at a lower temperature than the surface air. This is all extraneous to the facts of the global warming trend. That is based on an energy balance between the radiative input from the sun and the release of energy back to space. The point is that CO2 buildup in the atmosphere alters this balance in favor of retaining more heat in the earth/ocean/atmosphere system. I don’t know where you get the idea that accurate climate and weather models haven’t been developed. It is just not true even considering that accuracy is a relative term. I address this more in my “purgatoried post” which I hope to get released or repost in sections a little later. If you want to reply please wait until it gets released or re-posted.
This disjointed communication is frustrating. To write a reply to one thing only to have to respond to further communications before the first is published fucks with my head.

Posted by: juannie | Feb 1 2012 18:35 utc | 49

OK. It’s been almost a full day since I posted and it never showed up so I’ll try again. If I don’t see it in half an hour I’ll try splitting it into two posts. Next post here should be mine.

Posted by: juannie | Feb 1 2012 20:29 utc | 51

Lol what can we do about climate change? Recycle our coke empties, spread shit over the back paddock? Whatever a few individuals do to try n mitigate the effects of mega-corps and their millions of willing drones get up to spewing shit across the planet, can only ever be a spit in the ocean. A spit that is more about assuaging bourgeois guilt than actually fixing the joint up.
Global warming, climate change, the deaths of most of our fellow mammal species are but a few symptoms of a seemingly terminal disease one that I have come to recognise will probably not be cured in my lifetime, if it is ever cured.
We all know this this disease; altho we give it different names according to the particular symptoms we suffer worst.
A polynesian watching his homeland disappear under the sea calls it ‘global warming’, a chinese kid dying of heavy metal poisoning calls it ‘pollution’. In amerika the homeless call it ‘corporate capitalism’. In Iraq a one legged, blinded by shrapnel woman, and prolly considers the problem to be ‘imperialism’. A black libyan getting the shit kicked out of him by the thugs abetted in Libya’s takeover takeover by global warming, polluting, corporate capitalist imperialists, prolly considers the disease to be racism.
It is all of those things and none of them. The nub of the issue was got at on kiwi TV a while ago by the loony libertarian fuck the assholes have put in charge of a long running consumer rights show, on the (soon to be sold to Newsltd, NewsCorp, NewsInc or whatever the fuck this week’s name is) govt TV station.
He described an individual’s private property ‘rights’ as “The backbone of western democracy”. Only I don’t think he understands that it is that ‘backbone’ which must be destroyed if humanity is to have any chance of turning this mess around.
I have no hope of any instant enlightenment, the current generation are too pre-occupied with the baubles of rampant consumerism, but the next generation, the sons and daughters of consumerists are already rejecting the shit their parents revere.
Expect more of that. I amused myself over xmas watching my grandniece drawing on the brand new Ipad her parents had given her for Xmas (she is 4!) with a crayon. Naturally I took alla the blame when my niece & her husband went apeshit about it (I can only imagine the scene afterwards “why did you leave … with that crazy old uncle of yours?” lol My brother-in-law, aka ‘granddad’ tried to tear a strip offa me about it but broke down pissing himself with laughter at the whole insane little scenario. we were bad but even the pot dealers n big time musos had more sense than to give their 4 y.o. kids $1000 fragile garbage)
Nevertheless the kid had the right idea and I have no doubt that contempt for consumerist shit will grow in the new generation in direct proportion to the amount of irrational devotion these kids observe their parents giving it. Gen Y is flat out paying irrational tribute to here today gone tomorrow trinkets while everything else from human relationships to Sumatran tigers, is getting destroyed.
That don’t mean we can sit on our asses tho. There is going to be violent revolution in a few years once people come to realise that more of the same just gives more of the same. That is; voting out a forked tongued fat bellied gutter snipe just gets you a different fork tongued fat bellied gutter snipe.
Between now and then lots of people have to invest energy and wit into developing a revolution that won’t put the same mob under a new name in power, but will continue revolting and thereby ensuring continuous dynamic change, albeit without violence, once change has been effected.
Integral to this ‘revolution’ must be the death of the concept of individual ownership of everything. Incidentally that includes state entities, which also should not ‘own’ anything but just have the right to use commonly held assets for as long as the locals believe that OK.
Rights of usage that last for as long as the use is beneficial, and those rights are available to all seem to be the smart way to solve this.
There are many complexities which need simple solutions, that is why the issue needs to be considered starting now.
If we wait until the biggest gun has control of the treasury before people decide how to resolve this stuff, it will be too late. The biggest gun will then have another big lever over the rest of us.
PS attn BND censor since this post doesn’t mention Iran, nor question germany’s economic imperialism, I expect you to let this post thru.

Posted by: debs is dead | Feb 1 2012 23:07 utc | 53

@53 – debs
the only posting problem i’ve run into consistently here is the “we cannot accept that data” error. one way i’ve maneuvered around it is to make a copy of my post – usually just a CTRL-C, but you could dump it in a text editor if you’re extra proud of it. then click up at the top to get to the home page. click to the thread you were just at. paste your text, but add a carriage return/linefeed – i don’t know if there’s windows/mac/linux differences in the success of this, but you could add some other extraneous characters if you like. hit post and jump through any captcha hoops. this works like a charm for me.
as for the captcha, if you feel like you should see it but aren’t, then maybe you’ve got something blocked. normally, i’m running no-script and manually turn on scripting functionality to various sites as needed. currently here, i’m running scripts from MoA and yahooapis, but not typepad, and it seems fine. so maybe check and see what any adblocking or scriptblocking browser addins are up to.

Posted by: Proton Soup | Feb 2 2012 0:10 utc | 55

Alternative “we cannot accept that data” escape – write post, copy post, delete post, paste post back in and add 1 character even an extra period at the end of post, the hit post button.
Pretty sure this is a time too long (writing a post) thing, as it’s happened on other sites as well.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 2 2012 4:35 utc | 57

“we cannot accept that data” —> F5 (refresh) is enough

Posted by: claudio | Feb 2 2012 13:04 utc | 59

the problem with windfarms is that they only operate 12% of the time on average. A 30 mph wind must be present to drive them. Further, they work least often when demand is highest, extreme heat and cold are calm wind events. This means that other power plants need to available on stand by, or great batteries need to be installed to store the energy.
Solar however tends to work better as extreme hot and cold weather is usually sunny, (fronts blow in with wind/clouds/storms but the High pressure typically rolls in hours later creating the calm after the storm. Solar requires batteries, but especially in the South/Southwest is abundant during our greatest power demand times 3-6 pm in Summer.

Posted by: scottindallas | Feb 2 2012 16:57 utc | 61

‘Iran far from posing existential threat’

Ex-Mossad Chief Ephraim Halevy warns strike on Iran could have devastating effect for region. ‘Ultra-Orthodox radicalization poses bigger threat than Ahmadinejad,’ he says

Posted by: b | Feb 2 2012 18:07 utc | 63

So overall gain from large scale windfarms is questionable? And from solar, potentially advantageous? But for a small scale or homestead with net metering wouldn’t either or both pay off? If so decentralizing is the path to follow. Coincides with my master plan. Locally, largish solar farms would seem advisable.
Incidentally, it’s generally stated in the climate community that 97% of climate scientists agree, not the 99% I quoted. I like to keep my claims factual. And scott, I think you would appreciate this site, FAQ’s about the science of climate change.
Dr.,
Is that Yueh on the summit of Langley and Tuttle Creek? No need to confirm. Great picts. I like em all but love the coyote (my totem).

Posted by: juannie | Feb 2 2012 21:38 utc | 65

Aloha, b and barflies…! Those Iranian War Drums are beating ever louder…
Barak: Attack Iran ‘before it’s too late’, Panetta: ‘No comment’…

Posted by: CTuttle | Feb 3 2012 4:01 utc | 67

b, you might look at Susan G. Komen and the percentage of their funds that go to actual women’s health, (it’s something like 20%) they are one of the worst charities going.

Posted by: scottindallas | Feb 3 2012 10:40 utc | 69

How Egypt’s revolution descended into tragedy on night of violence in Port Said

The unassuming Cairo graduate in designer glasses succinctly summed up Egypt’s balance of power. “The two biggest political parties in Egypt are Ahly and Zamalek. It’s bigger than politics,” he said.
By James Montague
7:00AM GMT 03 Feb 2012
It was 2007 and Assad had just helped to form Al Ahlawy, a fan group for his beloved Al Ahly, a giant of Egyptian football, who have won the title a record 36 times. Heavily influenced by Italy’s flamboyant, and often violent, Ultra fan groups, Assad decided to start his own. A few hundred met, carrying hastily painted banners and singing freshly composed chants at the Cairo International Stadium.
Their opposition that day were their hated city rivals Zamalek but Assad and his Ahlawy reserved their true hatred for a bigger foe. The Mubarak regime.
Every weekend the ultras of Egyptian football would ignite rivalries between local clubs but, more significantly, would fight the heavy-handed police, the brutal enforcers of Mubarak’s authoritarian rule. Protest graffiti began to appear.
Leaders were arbitrarily arrested and detained. Chants became increasingly more anti-government as the violence increased. “Regime! Be very scared of us, we are coming tonight with intent,” Al Ahlawy would sing. “The supporters of Al Ahly will fire everything up. God almighty will make us victorious. Go, hooligans!”
For ultras like Assad, the crackdown showed that the authorities were scared of the disaffected young people growing out of their country’s football stadiums.

Fuck the SCAF and fuck our government for supporting them.
Also see, Egypt: Going ULTRA is now the norm

During the 18-day revolt last year which toppled the regime, Ultras members decided to hit the streets as individuals yet became a full force. And after singing football chants inside stadiums, they began to belt out political chants which got them large public as well as media attention. Later, they were present at demonstrations, assisting and cheering on other protesters and activists in their ongoing battle against the authorities, protecting them from police and army attacks.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 3 2012 17:17 utc | 71

Scott,
Wind power is already competitive on a cents/kWh basis. It is because of that wind is built rapidly in many countries around the world. Exxon forecasts that in 2030 windpower will be the cheapest energy source if CO2 is priced into the prices for coal and gas.
Variation in production over a day is handled by the electric system at large, you don’t keep back-up for each individual wind plant or nuclear plant (emergency stops happen) and are handled mainly by water (water in the dam is stored energy), gas, pricing and back-ups. Swedish energy company Vattenfall just brought an oil plant online because the whole system is reaching its limits with the combination of very cold weather and nuclear reactors offline.
Over the years wind has – at least in Sweden – about the same variation as water or nuclear.
So the 12% does not really matter.
Dr. Yueh,
tidal for electricity is as far as I know on experimental plant level, but some technical problems remains to be solved for it to be profitable. Promising, but not really here yet.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Feb 3 2012 20:42 utc | 73

Judging by the exponential growth of the wind farms here in the Tehachapi area, I find it hard to believe it is not profitable or productive in terms of energy. And the idea, (at least here, that cold spells are “calm wind” spells is ludicrous. You should be here today, with a brisk wind chilling you to the bone.
I recently saw the maps for further wind farm expansion in the area, and find it hard to believe that such growth is riding on an unsuccessful or less than productive industry.
And, by the way, I have a close friendship with one of the wind company’s in-house environmentalists, and she swears the “bird of prey problem” is waaaay overblown, that she has seen very few bird deaths. Certainly, the area has a huge and diversive population of owls, falcons, and hawks. As well, there is an eagle population, although sightings are rare, as they tend to range over the Tejon and the Loop ranches. I have seen some of the controlled release condors in the area as well. I have heard of NO eagle, buzzard, or condor deaths due to the wind turbines, and am certain if there were documented cases, my friend would know of them.
If you’ve ever looked at a productive oil field, compare it to a productive wind farm. If you’d rather look at an oilfield, there’s something seriously wrong with you, and I suggest you seek proffessional help. Quick, before its too late, and they commit you.

Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Feb 3 2012 22:05 utc | 75

A great poem , lizard. Just beautiful.

Posted by: Copeland | Feb 4 2012 2:58 utc | 77

@scottindallas the problem with windfarms is that they only operate 12% of the time on average.
Huh? It seems you don’t know much if anything about alternative energies. Reading too much NRO I guess.
The new offshore windfarms we are building here in Germany have full output 3800h per year. That’s 153 of 365 days of full output and less output on the rest of them. Total downtime for lack of wind, too much wind or maintenance is in average less than 20 days per year.

Posted by: b | Feb 4 2012 5:52 utc | 79

resonant words lizard…nice one

Posted by: lotsofnoise | Feb 5 2012 0:59 utc | 81

#76,
yes, as Sun Ray would say “space is the place”.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 5 2012 8:20 utc | 83

http://www.nofreewind.com/2010/01/wind-turbine-out-graphs-part-i.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/274388/wind-energy-myth-robert-bryce
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/8120/T-Boones-Windy-Misadventure-And-the-Global-Backlash-Against-Wind-Energy
Last December, about the same time that Congress was voting to continue the wind subsidies, Texas Comptroller Susan Combs reported that tax breaks for wind projects in the Lone Star State cost nearly $1.6 million per job. And that “green” job bonanza is happening in Texas, America’s biggest natural gas producer.

Posted by: scottindallas | Feb 5 2012 15:15 utc | 85

Ireland is a wet miserable backwater, but one of the things we have been investing in is wind power. The Irish and Scottish coastlines are one of the windiest regions in the world. On 6th October we set a new record with wind power peaking at generating 39% of the nations electricity.
Source: http://www.siliconrepublic.com/clean-tech/item/24144-ireland-on-clean-tech-high
Now if only someone would invent a car that runs on rain…

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Feb 6 2012 3:33 utc | 87

Colm, but all that energy is of little use since it can’t be stored. The baseline generation is what planners must rely on. I will remind you that Ireland is the world capital of financial manipulation, and windmills are funded mostly by gov’t grants–see how many taxes the manufacturer of those windmills pays: GE %0. In Texas we gave $8 billion in corporate welfare for our windmills, and we have more than any state in the country. WE HAVE MORE THAN ANY STATE IN THE COUNTRY, AND b WON’T RESEARCH OUR EXPERIENCE!?! It’s been a miserable failure here, perhaps it makes sense elsewhere, but as it is, I’m in the philosophically safe and broad position and the ADVOCATES have their own lobbyists and agenda pushing for more grants and gov’t support. I don’t dismiss gov’t investment in viable industry, but I do support cost benefit analyses of those various alternatives.

Posted by: scottindallas | Feb 6 2012 6:52 utc | 89

b: – – “@scottindallas – those ain’t sources.
Those are partisan lobbyist paid by big oil to write what they write. Like that Robert Bryce in the National Review. He works at the Manhattan Institute which gets in money from Koch, Exxon and others. Same with Energy Tribune.
If you have no argument to make but to repeat lobbyist papers, you better leave this blog.”
which is why, b, I asked you for a source on your earlier claim that:

“The new offshore windfarms we are building here in Germany have full output 3800h per year. That’s 153 of 365 days of full output and less output on the rest of them. Total downtime for lack of wind, too much wind or maintenance is in average less than 20 days per year.”

because, I may be wrong, but those figures you provided sound rather like Wind-Energy company-supplied figures. and In my experience figures supplied by Wind-Energy Co’s are sometimes slightly exaggerated (to put it mildly 🙂
So, any chance of a source for the figures you quoted regarding the new offshore windfarms which Wind-Energy companies are building in Germany?
thanks

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 6 2012 7:21 utc | 91

@Hu Bris – which is why, b, I asked you for a source on your earlier claim that…
The 3800 hours full output for offshore windparks is from the German government ministry for the environment and reactor safety. It is out of its book Erneuerbare Energien (pdf in German). The book was published in 2009. The number 3800h of full output (Volllast) is on page 70 of the book (page 72 in the pdf).
Notice that in 2009 the German government was still very much pro-nuclear and had no reason to hype wind energy.

Posted by: b | Feb 6 2012 16:01 utc | 93

@ scott,
“What I want YOU to recognize” is that questioning conflict of interests is not an “ad hominem” attack but an imperative for any “earnest” researcher. As a Senior Fellow at The Manhattan Institute which is funded by both ExxonMobile and Koch Industries, Robert Bryce is encumbered with some pretty powerful conflicts of interests.
Additionally, Robert Bryce’s arguments have been addressed and pretty effectively demolished and are more like the definition of ”specious” than questioning conflicts of interests is the definition of an ad hominem attack.
One last thing. Your comment to me in your #68 is more “sophist” than anything b has ever written on this blog in almost eight years. Not discussing climate change and not disclosing the major industrial sources driving climate change and not disclosing those vested interests’ propaganda and lies in trying to deny climate change is in effect supporting their agenda of obfuscation. If we have any chance of reversing or bringing an end to our planet being exploited and despoiled it is paramount to bring an end to those criminal actions of people and institutions that block effective action.

Posted by: juannie | Feb 6 2012 18:47 utc | 95

BILD: “THE CO2 LIES … pure fear-mongering … should we blindly trust the experts?”
Excerpt:

“One of the fathers of Germany’s modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning.
Vahrenholt’s skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned, he asked himself, “Is this the way they approached the climate assessment reports?”

Now I realise that BILD is in many ways the German equivilant of the UK SUN newspaper or the New York Post, but I also remember seeing BILD front-page hyping the “Global-Warming Threat” many times too in the past,often in a very provocative innaccurate and alarming manner, and heard no Global-warmists complaining about it doing so at the time

Posted by: Hu Bris | Feb 7 2012 16:24 utc | 97

@Hu bris – Vahrenholt is now on the board of the biggest German energy (coal, gas, nuclear) company.
He has a clear business interest in denying global warming, which he, to my knowledge, never did befor he took that job. Just another corrupt person.

Posted by: b | Feb 7 2012 17:12 utc | 99