Thank You, Mr. President

Three cheers for President Obama for this address. He took this opportunity in his weekly address, the week of Earth Day, to say that climate change is our greatest threat, which it is.

            I would have been happier had he said these things on the occasion of his first Earth Day in office; and I would have been happier had he gone further than touting more efficient cars and solar energy and said that we need to transform large sectors of our society and much of the way we live in order to keep the planet from heating up like an oven. Even still, thank you, Mr. President, for addressing global warming in you weekly address.

Appalachians Get Zero Hope or Change in the President's State of the Union Address

The number of times president Obama mentioned in his State of the Union Address the chemical spill in West Virginia’s Elk River that denied drinking water to 300,000 residents: 0

The number of times that the president talked about mountaintop removal: 0

I admit that this administration has an uphill battle against big business, King Coal, and the GOP. But if you’ve got a “pen and a telephone,” as the president says, maybe you could write up an executive order or two or make a phone call or two to help the folks in Appalachia.

The amount of hope and change promised to Appalachians by the president last night

A Great Idea: Invite Maria Gunnoe to the State of the Union Address

This is a really great idea. Annie Leonard, who became well known for her Story of Stuff critique of consumerism, says in answer to the New York Times’ “Room for Debate” question “Who Should be Invited to the State of the Union?” that Maria Gunnoe, the noted mountaintop removal activist and one of the 300,000 West Virginia residents who were left without water from the Freedom Industries chemical spill, should be among the president’s guests.

Mr. President, invite Maria Gunnoe to your State of the Union Address.

Leonard points out, rightly, that having Gunnoe as an invited guest to the State of the Union Address would, “point to the urgent need to reform both our antiquated chemicals policy—the compound that was spilled was not regulated by state or federal law—and our energy policy, which must quickly achieve a transition to clean, renewable sources.”

            In 2009 Gunnoe received Goldman Environmental Prize. She also received the prestigious Raoul Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan in 2012. Gunnoe received the Wallenberg award, given to individuals who have worked against great odds for peace and human dignity, for her years of work organizing against mountaintop removal. Besides highlighting the chemical spill, her presence at the president’s speech would point up this holocaust that is devastating Appalachia and the lives of Appalachians.

Will W.Va. give Obama’s climate plan a chance?

Will W.Va. give Obama’s climate plan a chance?

Another great observation from Ken Ward. Of course the reaction from the coal companies and their politicians, like Shelly Moore Capito, are predictable. Sometimes I wonder, given the animus that most West Virginians have towards our president, would West Virginia support him doing anything?

A Speech on Climate Change That I Can Believe In

While I have criticized the president before for his lack of action on global warming, I applaud the speech he made yesterday. It is a stance on climate change that I can believe in. While the GOP has delivered to the moneyed interests exactly what they want, a Congress that is legislatively stalled during a Democratic presidency, this speech, and the resulting actions that Obama promises by his administration, is all the president can do.

            He gave us what the second Bush administration denied us, an unequivocal statement on what the science is telling us about CO2 and our warming world. It’s a sad comment on our politics and a testament to the power of the energy companies and their ability to obfuscate the facts at hand, that long after the science has been concluded we have to wait years, decades really, for our president to make such a statement. But I guess it always works that way. “Separate is note equal” is a pretty simple and obvious observation, but it took generations after Emancipation before the Supreme Court made that ruling on civil rights.

Mostly by restricting emissions from power plants, president Obama’s proposed set of rules and regulations could reduce our country’s greenhouse gas emissions in the next seven years by close to 20 percent of 2005 levels.

            Of course, the coal companies don’t like it. Fox News is, predictably, not pleased. And Mitch McConnell has said that the president’s proposed course of action on the climate is a “war on jobs” and “tantamount to kicking the ladder out from beneath the feet of many Americans struggling in today’s economy.” What I’d like to know from Mitch McConnell is why, if he is so concerned about American’s having and keeping jobs, has he gotten in the way of any effort to help the economy recover after the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression?

            Over at Appalachian Voices, they rightly applaud the president, even urging him to do more. Executive Director Tom Cormons had this to say:

The president’s plan represents a good first step toward a 21st Century climate and energy policy for America. It’s essential that his administration implement one of the centerpieces of that plan–strong controls on power plant emissions.

Beyond what he spoke of today, there’s more the president must do to build a robust clean energy economy and ensure that heavily impacted areas like Appalachia don’t get left behind.

The devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining has no place in a 21st Century energy plan, nor in a positive environmental legacy for this president.

President Obama must stop industry from pushing the costs of doing business off on communities and our environment, while doing more to invest in energy efficiency and renewable sources particularly in Appalachia and other regions that have borne the brunt of a fossil-fuel economy.

For example, the administration’s plan to provide up to $250 million in loan guarantees to rural utilities to finance job-creating energy efficiency and renewable energy investments is a great start. Compare this to the $8 billion in the president’s plan for loan guarantees supporting fossil fuel projects, and its clear that we need to see a much stronger commitment.

Such investments will go far to create the jobs, economic security, and environmental health for these areas, consistent with President Obama’s goal of fulfilling a moral obligation to future generations.

Cormons is correct, and the warming of the planet and the devastation of Appalachia from out-of-control surface coal mining are most certainly linked. I’m willing, however, at least for now, to cheer president Obama for his actions on the climate.

Forward On Climate: Change We Can Believe In On Climate Change?

While I have criticized Barack Obama in this blog for his less than stellar performance on global warming, it is important to remember that he is merely the man in the Oval Office. Congress, the courts, as well as the people of this country also bear the responsibility of moving things forward when it comes to the environment and global warming.

            Of all these actors, it is often the people who prove to be the most important agents and instigators of change. Suffragettes marched and demonstrated, and politicians agreed to enfranchise women with the vote. Without Martin Luther King and the March on Washington in 1963, there may not have been the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

            For this reason I cheer the Forward On Climate Rally planned for the 17^th of this month. Organized by 350.org, the Sierra Club, and the Hip Hop Caucus, the rally promises to gather thousands at the National Mall to urge the President and Congress to pass reasonable climate legislation. The Keystone Pipeline, which President Obama has the authority to authorize or reject, has been set in the crosshairs by the organizers of the rally. The pipeline both physically and symbolically embodies what is most wrong with our energy policy. Relying on the mining of Canadian tar sands, the Keystone oil will lay waste to a huge area of Alberta, as well as contribute an ever-greater amount of CO2 to the environment than more traditional oil drilling does.

            I will, unfortunately, be unable to attend the rally, but I hope that enough concerned citizens are able to make it to DC and let Washington know that we do not want a warmer world. I will make it to the rally being held in Balboa Park in San Diego. If you can't make it to the big rally in Washington, I encourage you to show up at your local rally.

President Obama Accepts Reality During His Acceptance Speech: So Why Am I Not Campaigning For Him?

Delivered as an obvious rebuke to the flippant dismissal that Romney gave the topic of climate change during the GOP convention, President Obama had this to say about a warming planet during his acceptance speech.

Well, three cheers! It’s good to hear a note of reality during a party convention speech. But as Obama talks the talk, please excuse me for being skeptical about our president walking the walk.

When he ran for president in 2008, Obama and his campaign promised “swift and comprehensive action to combat global climate change.”[i] Yet the tack on global warming that the administration took after gaining office was often tepid and cautious. During those first hundred days of the new administration, when Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and Oval Office, the administration more or less threw cold water on comprehensive legislation introduced to the House that would have capped greenhouse gasses.[ii] Also, for the International Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Obama waited until the last day to show up.[iii]

            Perhaps I have been expecting too much. After all, it’s impossible to describe the opposition that the GOP has presented to advancing any progress on reducing greenhouse gasses. And opposition on this issue also extends to the president’s own party.[iv] In his favor I do have to give Obama credit for raising standards for gas mileage for American cars. He didn’t need Congress for that.

Obviously, I can have no truck with a candidate who is dismissive of the dangers of rising seas and a planet that is wrapping itself more thickly in the thermal insulation of CO2, as Governor Romney did last week. I just wish that, campaign speeches and acceptance speeches aside, I could vote to reelect a president who had done more to keep the globe from getting hotter and hotter.

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[i] Broder, John M. “Obama, Who Vowed Rapid Action on Climate Change, Turns More Cautious.” New York Times April 11, 2009

[ii] ibid

[iii] Broder, John M. “Obama Shifts His Visit to Last Day of Climate Conference.” New York Times December 5, 2009

[iv] Broder, John M. “Climate Bill Threatened by Senators.” New York Times August 7, 2009

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama: What Their Campaigns Say About the Environment

As it is that I’m concerned about the environment and how our thinking about the environment affects the manner in which we live our lives and how those actions affect our rivers and streams, the air we breath, and the creatures that share this planet with us, I venture into the political from time to time to examine the thinking behind new or proposed legislation or the rhetoric about the environment that comes from candidates and parties. I have pointed out that some of the rhetoric of the GOP over the last 30 years runs counter to its traditional conservationist attitude toward the environment. And some of what the Grand Old Party says and does also strikes me as weird or crazy.

            That being said, it piqued my curiosity to look at the websites of the presidential candidates governor Mitt Romney and president Barack Obama to see what they both had to say about the environment.

            Energy and the environment are listed as issues addressed on Obama’s campaign website. Clicking into that webpage, topics include wilderness protection, increasing the fuel economy of our automobiles, as well as improving the quality of our air. Some of the ideas listed on this page I consider dubious. With the environmental destruction of modern mining methods, no kind of coal is ever clean, no matter how many times you scrub it. Constructing great wind farms in the desert can also affect the land and be deadly for birds and bats.

I don’t’ believe that Barack Obama has a great environmental record. But whether or not I agree with the policies and actions he endorses, the President has established the environment as a campaign issue.

On the other hand, clicking over to Mitt Romney’s website, of the 24 subjects that his campaign lists as issues, the environment is not mentioned once. If you look at the Energy issue page, it says that Mitt Romney, as president, will “make every effort to safeguard the environment.” And yet a familiar trope of “regulatory reform,” which means loosening or doing completely away with environmental laws appears further down the page.

Even among Democrats the environment is not a big issue right now, overshadowed by jobs and pocketbook concerns. And yet it seems so odd to me that someone could run for president and expect votes from a constituency that is unconcerned about the health and safety of our waters or our ability to breath clean air.

Mountaintop Removal and the Continuation of Evil

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are out of office, but much of the damage that they and their administration accomplished continues. One of the most insidious eleventh hour rule changes made by the last administration was a change to the part of the Clean Water Act that allows mountaintop removal coal mining companies to dump their wastes anywhere that they please.

            Before the Bush change, mountaintop removal mines had to maintain buffer zones of 100 feet between streams and the material that they dumped as waste from their mines. With the change of just a few words, the Bush administration changed the idea of a stream from that of a natural area to that of a construction site and the waste from the mine to being construction material. The mine companies could then dump their waste and bury streams any which way they wanted.

            Obama and his administration want to change the wording of the regulation to resemble its original intent. It seems, however, that this small step in the right direction is being impeded by House GOP members who are, in a fairly obvious tactic of harassing the Interior Department and the administration, subpoenaing documents in relation to the planned changes to the regulation.

            Edmund Burke, the British statesman who developed the philosophical underpinnings of modern conservatism, said “when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” When I think about mountaintop removal and run across an incident like this subpoena—only one of the ways that the GOP is guaranteeing that this most horrible and destructive mining practice continues—I can’t help but sometimes despair that Burke was a blind optimist who had no experience of the corruption of greed and money.

Should Environmentalists Vote for Barack Obama?

This coming national election should environmentalists vote for Barack Obama? Obama’s campaign is counting on green voters to support him this time around, as they did in 2008.  The Obama campaign has, predictably, set up a website, Environmentalists for Obama, that touts the environmental work that the president has achieved. The President even makes an appearance on his own environmental behalf.

It is true that the administration has set forth extremely high gas mileage standards. By 2017 cars will need to have an average mileage of over 50 miles per gallon. Given the current state of technology this is doable, and the administration deserves credit for pushing for it.

            And yet there are so many areas in which the administration has fallen flat when it comes to protecting our air, water, and land. Regulations that were loosened during George W. Bush’s time on the White House that gave the mountaintop removal coal companies an almost completely lawless free ride in Appalachia have not been changed by the Obama administration. And as I noted in a previous blog, the Obama administration wants to ease the protections for endangered species.

            And now the administration is turning its back on the polar bear. Because the CO2 that comes out of our tailpipes and factories is melting the ice on which the polar bears live, their survival as a species has become quite dicey. No polar ice = no polar bears. But the administration has issued a new rule that exempts activities outside the range of the polar bear from any restrictions that may protect the bear, even though those activities have been shown to harm the habitat of the bears.

Polar bears in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Photo credit: Susanne Miller, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, April 17, 2012 

OK, I admit that there are lots of complications to this. Restricting greenhouse gasses and thus protecting the bears here in the United Sates may not have any bearing on what India, China, or Uruguay does. We could do a very fine job of protecting the polar bears, and because the rest of the world, or at least a portion of it, continues to pump CO2 into the atmosphere polar bears will go the way of the passenger pigeon.

            The oil and gas industries, which are most likely the forces behind the new rule, appeal to a type of environmental isolationism, saying that it “makes no sense to require someone building a bridge in Florida to compensate for threats to polar bears at the top of the globe.” I would be a little sympathetic to this outlook had these same voices made similar arguments to that someone in Florida when it came to supporting or fighting in a war in Iraq, which is at the other end of the globe, too.

            The Fish and Wildlife Agency may have a point that regulating CO2 to protect the bears could lead to a flood of lawsuits, but we don’t know that for certain. I admit that I don’t like to spend a whole bunch of time inside a courtroom. But what would you rather have, a full docket of lawsuits or melting ice sheets and drowning polar bears?

            So for environmentalists, what do we do at the polls this November? Barack Obama’s record on the environment is mediocre at best. But there doesn’t seem to be any push for the environment coming from Romney. As a matter of fact, the GOP, with Newt Gingrich calling for the elimination of the EPA and Romney walking back his earlier acknowledgement that we are warming the planet, seems to be actively hostile to the environment. Is that our choice? Mediocre or bad?

February 3, 1973 Richard Nixon signs the Endangered Species Act. If we only had presidential candidates like Nixon today.

Those Who Disparage Climate Scientists Can Take a Vacation

I sometimes wonder why there is an industry that disparages the scientists who investigate climate change and the work that they do. If the Heartland Institute, Forbes Magazine, Fox News, and other organizations like them stopped their attacks on climate scientists, would it make any difference? Would there be serious discussion and action to reduce our carbon emissions?
             One of the latest opinion pieces from the Forbes is tediously silly. Because R.A. Pielke, a meteorologist with a skeptical yet nuanced view of the current understanding of climate change, criticized on his blog what appears to be a stupid statement in a scientific paper on climate, the Heartland Institute’s James Taylor insists that this is proof that the whole endeavor to understand how our use of fossil fuels is warming our planet is nothing but a house of cards. By his way of thinking, one corrupt judge is proof that the entire judiciary is morally bankrupt, and one bad teacher demonstrates the hollowness of our educational system.
             Obviously this cramped and weak reasoning is enough for the true believers who still disbelieve that the world was warming, even when they are presented with the most convincing evidence. And manufacturing doubt sways a few additional folks as well.
             But if the Heartland Institute stopped its attacks, if Forbes magazine stopped publishing dubious op-eds on climate scientists, if Fox News started reporting facts instead of opinion, would it make any difference?
            Mitt Romney, who only two years ago acknowledged the human thumbprint of global warming in his book, No Apology, has adopted a line acceptable to the GOP to become their nominee. Speaking at a recent closed-door fundraiser, he said, “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO₂ emissions is not the right course for us.” This line rings with doppelganger-like similarity to George W. Bush’s climate change mantra that more research needed to be done before we took any action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But with Barack Obama, who, like Romney, has also acknowledged that humans are causing climate change, we have a president who is running for reelection and is in the meanwhile saying nothing about global warming. On his recent energy tour—in which he talked about his “all of the above” energy strategy, which includes a reliance on fossil fuels—not once did he mention climate change, greenhouse gasses, or global warming.

             So there you have the two candidates’ stances on global warming: a policy of glib doubt or silence. The Heartland Institute could probably lay off its staff that attacks climate scientists, and Forbes could probably take the space in its magazine devoted to global warming and use it for something else, because right now, no matter who you vote for, it looks like Heartland, Forbes, Fox, and all the big business that they speak for will get their way: Nothing is going to change except the climate.

Those Dangerous Environmentalists!

I think of myself as an old fashioned blogger, someone who puts up a few thoughts from time to time without a whole bunch of bells and whistles. But I’ve been intrigued by this video clip for the last few weeks, so I stuck it in this blog. You may have seen it. It was apparently broadcast on the TV news and later made something of a splash on the Internet. It shows President Obama in one of his town hall meetings–an event expected to be attended by supporters–when this couple, identified as members of the T Party, confront him over statements that Vice President Biden was accused of saying. Biden was accused of comparing the T Party to terrorists.

            There is no record of Biden making such a statement, and he has denied comparing members of the T Party to terrorists.[i] The gist of the video is hence a moot point. I want to talk about something else in the video. It concerns what the young lady said about 40 seconds into the video clip. Continuing the confrontation with the president, she says, “You do realize that 90 percent of the domestic terrorist attacks are done by left-wing environmental radicals and not people like me.”

            Well, OK. I have to agree that she doesn’t seem to have the disposition of being a terrorist of any sort. But 90 percent of domestic terrorist attacks performed by left-wing environmental radicals? Where does that come from?

This young lady, since identified by the press as Stacey Rogers, is confused, but it’s not all her fault. There are many things that make the whole subject of terrorism confusing. Often it is the result of sloppy thinking, at other times, as I’ve pointed out in this blog before, there are people who are trying to obfuscate the issue for political ends.

Before we get to the subject of terrorism, we should clear up one thing: why would she call terrorism identified as environmental as left wing? I’ve written about this in other blogs, Environmental concerns and regulation have traditionally come from conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats. Painting environmentalists into a political corner is a recent phenomenon.[ii] Right-wing folks have been pushing this idea, this misunderstanding, for decades. Rogers seems young. So on the one hand, I want to give her the benefit of the doubt on this; on the other hand, when you’re talking to the President of the United States and leader of the free world, you should at least have some idea of what you’re saying.

            OK, on to terrorism. The reason this young lady is confused is because terrorism has different definitions. Not only do different people and organizations define it differently, terrorism will have different definitions from the same organization. The FBI says of international terrorism:

 International terrorism involves violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any state, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or any state (italics mine).[iii]

While the for domestic terrorism:

Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.[iv]

Note that the phrase “dangerous to human life” does not appear in the definition of domestic terrorism. What we think of as terrorism–car bombs, suicide bombers blowing up cafés and busses–is not needed for an act to be considered terrorist by the FBI if that act is committed within the borders of the United States. So the FBI considers two incidents, men with bombs killing 35 people in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and members of the Earth Liberation Front pouring sugar in the gas tanks of construction vehicles, to be defined and reported as acts of terror.[v]

            Now let’s think a moment, no one in his right mind could equate, on any level, a deadly bombing and vandalism of a car. That is, nonetheless, what is happening here. There is something wrong at the FBI that they would do such a thing leading to such confusion. This needs to be corrected. In the meantime people like Rogers get confused.

Furthering the confusion is that the government counts the perpetration of acts it describes as terrorism, and each act is counted equally. Protesters trampled a crop of genetically engineered corn in July of 2000 = one act of terrorism. Mohamed Atta and his cohort fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September of the next year = one act of terrorism.

OK, let’s see further how we muddle the pot when we think about terrorism. Arson committed by ELF is defined as terrorism.[vi] Yet other acts of arson, ones with a clear political message or the intent to cause fear or intimidation are not described as terrorism. In August a federal grand jury indicted Cody Crawford with a hate crime and arson for firebombing a mosque. Nowhere in the FBI’s description of this incident do they call it an act of terrorism.[vii] Last year a father and his son, Dwight Lincoln Hammond, Jr. and Steven Dwight Hammond, both ranchers, were charged with arson and assault for setting fire to BLM land, but their crime was not counted as a terrorist act.[viii]

Please don’t think that I’m condoning vandalism or other property crimes. But to effectively deal with crime or terrorism the severity of the act and intent need to be part of our judgment. That is part of the bedrock of our criminal justice system. Murderers and rapists get longer sentences than petty criminals; repeat offenders get more jail time, too. And if we are truly to make ourselves safer against terrorism, we need to properly understand it. Thinking of vandalism, the destruction of genetically engineered crops or spray painting construction equipment, as the equivalence of pipe bombings and mass killings increases fear and clouds our judgment. It seems obvious that there are politics and involved in how these definitions of terrorism are applied and misapplied. No wonder people like Rogers get confused.

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[i] Obama’s denial that Biden called tea party activists ‘terrorists’ Glenn Kessler Washington Post 8/17/2011  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-denial-that-biden-called-tea-party-activists-terrorists/2011/08/16/gIQAr1g3JJ_blog.html

[ii] http://environmentcontext.blogspot.com/2011/07/can-bird-fly-with-only-left-wing.html

[iii] FBI website: Terrorism 2002-2005 http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005

[iv] ibid

[v] ibid

[vi] ibid

[vii] Oregon Man Charged with Hate Crime for Arson at Mosque. FBI press release. http://www.fbi.gov/portland/press-releases/2011/oregon-man-charged-with-hate-crime-for-arson-at-mosque

[viii] Ranchers Commit Arson, But Not Terrorism. Doris Lin. About.com June 25, 2010 http://animalrights.about.com/b/2010/06/25/ranchers-commit-arson-but-not-terrorism.htm