Global Warming Brings Us a 1950s Sci-Fi World

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time watching old science fiction movies on TV. The plots varied some, but the movies always had a reasonable scientist who properly performed his research and warned of coming disaster, lest the world continue in its foolhardy practices. The movies always had beautiful and vulnerable young women. And, of course, there were always the world-threatening cataclysms—like giant grasshoppers or giant bunny rabbits that killed, destroyed, and threatened all of civilization—that came to fruition because the world did not heed the warnings of the reasonable scientist. And there was always the brave hero who, on the advice of the reasonable scientist, took some bold action to kill off the giant critters and ensure civilization its survival while the beautiful and vulnerable young woman fell in love with him.

            Maybe all that time in front of the television wasn’t wasted, and it actually prepared me for life in the twenty-first century and the science fiction headlines that are becoming common due to climate change.

            In the Guardian today, two stories tell us about the science fiction world we now live in. We learn that the folks in the Marshall Islands, a country comprising a group of Pacific atolls between Hawaii and Australia, are seriously concerned that their entire nation could become uninhabitable in the next 30 to 60 years. The islands are only an average of about six feet above sea level, and the rising ocean threatens increased occurances of flooding as well as increasing the salinity of their groundwater supplies.

            Even for places that are high and dry global warming threatens crops, health, and living standards. Hundreds of agricultural pests that have been confined to the warmer parts of the world are moving north and south at a rate of almost two miles per year. That is the conclusion drawn by British scientists who studied data that has been collected for the last 50 years on over 500 tropical pests. As these pests advance into temperate climates, it could increase the costs of food or even lead to serious shortages.

            Reasonable scientists have been warning us about these kinds of climate change scenarios, but I’m afraid that there won’t be any brave heroes to save the world this time.

Nobody listens to the reasonable scientist and the giant grasshoppers attack the Wrigley Building in Chicago. Maybe the sugar in the gum attracts them.  From  Beginning of the End, AB-PT Pictures Corp. 1957

King Coal Gins Up Animus For Obama and the EPA

Mines have been closing throughout Appalachia, with hundreds of miners laid off. Some of these men have been on the job for years; others have worked decades in the mines. These men are laid off in an area that has been economically depressed since at least the early eighties. Prospects for finding other well-paying work are not good.

            Mine closings also affect the barbers, restaurant owners, waitresses, and just about everybody else who works for a living in a mining community. Paychecks that no longer come in also affect the children.

            Mines close and everybody suffers.

Poverty reigns where they mine coal. Lose your job and the chances of finding other good-paying work are slim.

Miners and residents of coal communities have a right to be upset and angry when their mines close. I just don’t like it when the coal companies spend time and money to channel that anger to advance their agenda.

            Coal companies are spending big bucks to sponsor rallies, and PR campaigns to get the message out that miners have lost their jobs and Appalachians suffer because of Barack Obama, the EPA, and environmentalists. Big Coal and its supporters have created organizations such as Coal Mining Our Future that sponsor rallies and distribute T-shirts with pro coal industry messages. These organizations also encourage Appalachians to contact politicians with pro coal mining memes. Like any other industry, King Coal has always had its lobbyists. But by enlisting the public to contact their Congressional representatives, they have created a coal constituency to support their industry in the state houses and Capitol Hill.

            Apparently, these campaigns are paying off for King Coal.  Public opinion favoring the coal companies and their mining practices has increased in the last six years. In a speech titled “From Villain to Victim: The Coal Industry’s New Image in Appalachian Kentucky,” Al Cross, the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, said of the coal companies, “[They] are in a defensive mode, and they’re gathering their friends around them. This has created, I think, kind of a siege mentality and a regional solidarity. There used to just be sympathy for miners. Now there is sympathy for an industry.”

            Traditionally, miners viewed their employers with a jaundiced eye. For good reason. They knew that without their union, the coal companies would have them working under extremely hazardous conditions for subsistence wages. So for me, having grown up in West Virginia, it’s a little disorienting to see miners taking the side of the coal companies, but I guess that a well-planned and financed PR campaign can bring over a lot of people to your side.

A scene from Matewan, about the beginnings of the United Mine Workers, when miners trusted water moccasins more than the coal companies

Regulations on power plants aside, coal mines have closed because of increased transportation costs and a great decline in the price of natural gas. Warmer than average winters also mean that people are burning less coal and lessening the demand for the mineral. Are these reasons for the decline in coal mining brought up at the industry sponsored rallies?

            I didn’t think so.

            Burning coal throws more CO2 in the atmosphere than anything else; one of the best strategies to reduce our CO2 emissions would be to phase out its use. I can understand that miners’ discontent, and if we as we as a country make the decision to turn away from coal, we owe the miners and other Appalachians a path for them to move on economically, whether that be through regional economic development, education and job training, or aided migration to other areas of the country that aren’t as economically depressed.

            Whether it be the automobile industry exiting Detroit and leaving that city in an economic vacuum or clothing companies buying garments from unsafe factories in Asia, the track record of corporations caring about their workers is not a good one. I don’t believe that the coal companies really care about the miners holding onto their jobs. The coal industry wants less regulation, and they are successfully channeling the anger of the miners, their families, and their neighbors to achieve that goal. But while they hold rallies and hand out T-shirts, mountains crumble, people get sick and die from polluted waters, and others lose their homes and communities to rising seas.

             

            

More Facts, More Inconvenience, and More Laws For Ignorance

I hope that this is not a trend. As I previously posted, North Carolina is trying to legislate ignorance by requiring that the science of climate change is excluded from studies of sea level rise. Well, it looks like Virginia is following suit with a similar push by that state’s GOP legislators to similarly exclude science from a coastal study in their state.

            The curious thing for me is the manner in which climate change science was characterized by GOP lawmaker Chris Stolle. He called scientific terminology “left wing terms” and “political speech.”

The push to politically isolate environmentalism, which traditionally has always enjoyed broad public support, to a politics of the left goes back at least to the 1980 presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan. Reagan and others characterized environmentalism as left wing and extreme.

            Now in Virginia we have gone to another level. The inconvenient facts, the science that indicates a warming world and rising seas—what concerns environmentalists and is actually a concern for just about everybody else—is now thought of as political, and left leaning political at that. This is big crazy and makes my head spin.

North Carolina GOP: Maybe We Can Pretend That Global Warming Will Just Go Away

The state of North Carolina is on the verge of stuffing their fingers in their ears and saying “Blah, blah, blah!”

            And they want a law to do it.

            Apparently GOP legislators of the state don’t like some news that has come out of their state’s Coastal Resources Commission, which said that, due to global warming, an increase of about one meter in sea level can be expected by the year 2100. Coastal North Carolina is low lying. A rise of that much ocean could threaten 2000 square miles of the eastern part of that state.

            Instead of preparing for the rising waters and the threats that it may make on communities and infrastructure, North Carolina GOP lawmakers are circulating a bill that takes those inconvenient findings of the scientists and makes them go away. The proposed legislation restricts the measurement of sea level rise to the state’s coastal commission using historical records. Using any predictions based upon climate science would be against the law.

            Take away that pesky science stuff and all that global warming and rising seas goes away!

            Delaware, Louisiana, California, as well as other states, are preparing for sea level rises of a meter or more. Maine is preparing for a rise of up to two meters. But in Louisiana their GOP lawmakers want to stick their fingers in their ears and shout “Blah, blah, blah! Global warming is not happening!” In the meantime North Carolinians could build houses in coastal areas, only to see them become ruined by rising tides, and the building of protective structures, like higher seawalls, could be delayed needlessly.

            If this bill is any precedent, the Grand Old Party of North Carolina will next make it against the law for meteorologists to predict rain on days when picnics are planned.

Make all that sea level rise stuff go away!

Hat tip to my friend Robin for telling me about this story.