Here is an important review of the scientific literature regarding climate change that was published in 2013 and has not received enough publicity: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article.
The review looked at the whole of the scientific literature from 1991 to 2011, a total of 11944 papers. 66.4 % of the papers expressed no position on climate change. 32.6% of the papers endorsed the reality of climate change. 0.7% rejected the concept of anthropogenic global warming. 0.3% expressed uncertainty about the cause of global warming. Of the abstracts that expressed an opinion, 97.1% endorsed the consensus view.
When invited to express an opinion, only 35.5% of the authors of these papers stated that they had no position on the subject. Among self-rated papers that held an opinion, 97.2% endorsed the consensus that climate change is real and is caused by human activity.
These findings contradict the notion that there is any significant scientific disagreement about anthropogenic global warming (AGW.) Only a vanishingly small proportion of scientific papers and authors refuse to endorse the consensus view that AGW is real. Virtually all the research that has been done on the subject confirms this consensus and there is no significant disagreement on this matter among scientists.
It has been suggested that communication of the fact that virtually all scientists who have studied the subject agree that AGW is real would sway the attitudes of unconvinced laymen. This remains to be seen; there is some indication that this fact is not widely known.
One argument that has been introduced that denies the significance of this consensus is the contention that there was also a consensus on other subjects that was equally complete but erroneous, for example, the idea that the earth is flat, or that it is the center of the universe. This argument is not persuasive in the current era because there is no institution that enforces the “consensus” view anymore. The problem with those previous consensuses is that they were promulgated by the Catholic Church, which used its considerable power to prevent audible disagreement with its dictates. There is no comparable institution in today’s world, and freedom of exchange of controversial ideas has progressed to the point at which consensus is now difficult to reach on any subject.
The fact that there is such an overwhelming consensus among scientists who are free to think and write as they like is a powerful argument in favor of the reality of the concepts and facts behind that consensus: human-caused global warming is real and is a significant threat both to our survival as a species and to the health of our planet.
A Dream of Dancing
Dream of Dancing
In the movie, the actors are dancing, in period clothes, to period music, and then just weaving about the dance floor, clasped in one another’s arms; from time to time the tune changes, but the dancers are the same and wear the same clothes. The camera focuses on the dancer’s feet; they are close together, stepping back and forth in time to the music.
I am dancing with a rather tall, slender young woman wearing a soft wrinkled dress that I feel rather than see. We are dancing close together and I have one arm behind her waist and the other one in her hand. I realize that I am dreaming. The music is slow waltz time, soft and languorous. I concentrate on feeling my hand behind her waist, I move my hand up to her back, I feel her warm, living body with my fingers, I am feeling the skin and the muscles underneath, I feel her muscles are warm, I feel her muscles warming my fingers… the dream is pleasant… I want it to go on… the dream does go on… I can almost see with my fingers… the dress, her skin, the play of her muscles as she turns forward and back…
The dream ends.
There is a state of feeling in the dream, in which time seems to have stopped, but the dancing doesn’t stop; my hand touches the dancer’s shoulder and upper arm opposite me, in fact behind her in a peculiar fashion which would be difficult to duplicate unless we melt together, facing one another… there is no awkwardness… the dance continues, although the dream has ended.
The air is cool; it is early morning.
Cirrus
Tokyo, Japan August 7, 2015
Our whole species faces extinction within perhaps a dozen generations as we face the threat of destruction that is caused by irreversible climate change – yet not a word was mentioned of it in the GOP debates. The issue of race relations – which is a dominant feature of American life – whether between blacks and whites – immigrants and non-immigrants – is brushed over if addressed at all – yet trivial topics like political correctness and whether or not a candidate will support the party nominee are treated as worthy of serious attention and media discussion of such distractions. To blame are the candidates who seem to have little awareness of the larger picture – which is nightmarish consequences of going to war and the apocalyptic fate that awaits us if we continue to be sluggish or unresponsive to global environmental problems – but also to blame are us, the consumers, of the media infatuation with Donald Trump and unfortunately the debate format – which does not allow for republican and democrat presidential candidates to directly debate each other until we are down to only 2 candidates – thus we are left with this narrow band of issues specific to each party’s base.
I have recently posted about Caddo Parish (home of Shreveport), where a young black man was sentenced to death after his infant son died of pneumonia while sleeping next to him in bed. He was wrongfully convicted based on a bad autopsy which was contradicted by three expert pathologists, whose testimony was ignored by the appellate court.
This post is also about Caddo Parish, where a young black man was sentenced to life in prison after arranging a $20 marijuana purchase (two dime bags.) The vehicle for the life sentence was the three strikes law: he had previously been sentenced for two non-violent felonies (burglary and possession of cocaine.) At the time of his crime, the man was homeless and hungry, and said he needed the money for food. He was homeless because he couldn’t get a job due to his felony criminal record, and he was hungry because anyone convicted of a drug crime is permanently ineligible for food stamps.
First, a transaction involving two dime bags (less than half an ounce) of marijuana should not be a felony under even the most Draconian of legal systems. Second, it is absurd to call a three-strikes conviction for three nonviolent crimes an excuse to put someone in prison for life without parole. Third, this is the most expensive solution for homelessness ever devised. Finally, this is racism and anti-drug hysteria rolled together for a more potent threat to life and health.
The location is important: Caddo Parish is majority black (fifty-four to forty-one percent), and ninety-one percent of all those incarcerated for life from this location are black. This is the location in which the second-most lynchings of anywhere in the US have occurred. This is the location where, shortly before this man committed his crime, a black man who was filling up his car at a gas station was viciously beaten by three whites who shouted “fuck the niggers! Fuck Obama!” while they were beating him.
This is not just a case of anti-drug hysteria institutionalized. Racism, both personal and institutional, and racist violence are alive and well in Caddo Parish. Read about it in The Daily Beast, here.
Comment of the Day
Doro
Chester, NY July 22, 2015
This is no longer merely a matter of point-of-view, pro versus anti, right versus left. With this kind of poisonous propaganda the right–with its access to unlimited funding by its shadowy billionaire backers–is taking the nation into profoundly undemocratic territory.
Students of history will recognize the nature of this particular variety of propaganda and the deliberate use of Big Lie tactics to drive mass opinion through rage, reaction, and hate.
What makes this more dangerous is that it is not happening in isolation. This crude tactic goes beyond the reactionary anti-choice movement, whose excesses over the years have included acts of murder and clinic bombings. These radicals are now working in close alliance with the broader political right to destabilize and fracture our already-polarized national politics in advance of next year’s elections.
Notice the alacrity with which ambitious right-wing politicians–alerted long before the tapes were released to their existence and potential usefulness–have moved to weaponize this whole sordid nonsense to advance their own ambitions.
Beyond the core issue of women’s reproductive freedom and a woman’s right to a full spectrum of health care–already under assault everywhere in America–this incident underscores the deterioration of the Republican Party and the American right into a radical, unprincipled movement funded by a handful of oligarchs answerable to no-one and determined to win at any cost.
Cost of Solar Panels To Drop 25% in 3 Years
The Clean Technica blog predicts that the cost of solar photovoltaic panels will drop 25% in the next three years (post is here). This is on top of the already impressive 6-8% per year drop in costs over the past ten years. For example, the average home-scale system cost $12/watt installed in 1998 and $4 in 2013 ($3.33 in Florida and $4.94 in California.) Utility-scale systems have been estimated at, for 20 megawatts and more installed, at $1.88/watt in 2013.
In Germany, a country that is pushing hard for renewable energy and eliminating nuclear generators, residential systems have been estimated to cost half of the price here in the US (see this government-produced document: here), and the difference in cost is primarily “soft” expenses like installer margins.
There are many different predictions of the future cost of photovoltaic power. Another paper, by the Institute for Policy Integrity (here), shows a graph estimating solar power production as a percentage of total US electric production: rising from less than 0.01% in 2005, it stood at 0.4% in 2012. However, the US government has predicted that this percentage will remain low: less than 1% through 2025. This prediction is a gross underestimate, based on the assumption that prices for panels will actually increase 15%; other sources predict price decreases between 10% and 23% in the next five years. The prediction also assumes that the federal investment tax credit, which is scheduled to expire in 2016, will not be renewed. More realistic extrapolations by the Department of Energy predict that solar will represent between 4 and 8% of total electricity production by 2025.
These publications suggest that there is cause for optimism over the future of energy production worldwide, even in the United States. One practice that has been suggested is that households with electric cars could use the batteries in their cars for storage of energy produced by rooftop solar panels. This would combine the transportation need for energy with household use in a productive fashion and reduce the sale-back of electricity to the grid, a contentious issue with which electric power companies would rather not deal.
All of these practices, however, require investments which the average household in the United States cannot cope, particularly in view of the loss of wealth they have experienced over the last 35 years (since Reagan was elected and started the erosion of living standards which has continued through the Bush administrations and even Democratic presidents.) There will be a pressing need for the government to step in and provide financing for these investments, a need which can only be realized by the election of sympathetic Senators and Congress-people in the near future.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.
Dag Hammarskjold
Dag Hammarskjold was a diplomat and humanitarian, and a truly great man who dedicated his life to public service just as his parents had for generations, but was also an educated, athletic, cultured, sensitive man. Biographies of him are here and here. He was Secretary-General of the United Nations when he died in 1961 in an airplane crash in Africa, somewhere in the protectorate of Northern Rhodesia, in an area that is now part of Zambia. Fifteen others including the pilot and crew were also killed. There has been speculation for years that he was assassinated, but evidence surrounding the crash has been suppressed and in some cases, ignored. The United Nations recently established a committee to review evidence which has been brought forward regarding the plane crash.
The Guardian published an article in 2011 that detailed eyewitness testimonies and explained the motives behind the assassination, if not the identities of the assassins.
Hammarskjold was in Africa with a UN military mission responding to the request of a newly independent country, the Congo. A province of the Congo, Katanga, had rebelled with the support of a large European mining company (which was interested in the huge mineral deposits in the region) and the secret support of Belgium, the United States and Britain. The Secretary-General, Hammarskjold, ordered UN troops to intervene in a military operation against the rebellious province, Katanga. The leader of Katanga, Moise Tshombe, had made signals that he wanted to talk peace and Hammarskjold was flying to a meeting with him when his plane was shot down. Rebel mercenaries may have been responsible for sending the plane that shot down Hammarskjold’s DC-6. North Rhodesian troops, answering to a white-minority government, sealed off the crash site and prevented any investigation.
There was one survivor of the plane crash, and he was apparently alert afterwards, but a doctor who cared for him stated that he died of kidney failure five days later. The man could have been saved if he had been transferred to a larger hospital with dialysis capability, but he was left to die. He would have been able to provide critical testimony that the airplane he was riding in crashed because it was shot down rather than because of pilot error, which was the official conclusion.
The New York Times also published articles recently about the UN report and other details. A US signals intelligence station in Cyprus picked up a transmission, reported by Charles Southall, a naval aviator, which appeared to be from another airplane which seemed to be saying that it shot down the Hammarskjold plane. This report has never been secret, but for unknown reasons has been largely ignored. Charles Southall is 80 years old, still alive, and he confirmed the report in an email exchange with a New York Times writer.
The New York Times also describes the eyewitness testimony. The incident was witnessed by “…four charcoal burners who were in the forest the night of the crash… The charcoal burners described slightly different memories of seeing two planes in the air and one of them catching fire…[after the other plane shot at it]”
The article also repeated the revelation that “…The report also said the panel had learned that the cryptographic machine used by Mr. Hammarskjold had been “intentionally designed” to allow the N.S.A. and “other select intelligence agencies” to listen in. …”
The conclusion of the eyewitnesses was that there were two planes in the air, and one of them was shot down by fire from the second. One of the articles in the New York Times is here.
The official crash report, compiled under British supervision, concluded that the plane crashed due to mechanical failure or pilot error.
The United Nations established a panel which published a preliminary report this month stating that there was some evidence that the airplane was shot down by ground fire or another jet, and additional evidence that a sabotage attempt was made on the airplane. The report states that the US, Britain, and South Africa are holding documents which they have not released, which bear directly on the issue. The New York Times published another article on the UN report recently, which is here.
The political situation at the time allows for several groups to have motives to assassinate Hammarskjold, including the Soviet Union, the US, and certain mining companies which had operations in the area. The UN Secretary General Hammarskjold was trying to repair a cease-fire in the civil war between newly independent Congo and secessionist forces in which the Soviet Union, as well as Belgium, the US and Great Britain on the other side, were involved. Civil war continued in the Congo from 1960 to 1965; ultimately the country became a dictatorship under Joseph-Desire Mobutu until 1997.
After Hammarskjold was killed, President John F. Kennedy called him “the greatest statesman of our century.”
This post is about ancient history, that is, something that happened ten years ago. Medicare Part D, the “prescription drug benefit”, was passed in Congress about ten years ago, at 3 AM, reportedly under heavy pressure from the drug industry. At the time, Billy Tauzin was chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which “oversees the drug industry.” (Wikipedia)
Two months later, Mr. Tauzin resigned from Congress. He immediately became head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhMRA), at a salary of $2 million a year. He continued in this position for five years and resigned as of June 2010. We should note that he was recovering from cancer treatment at the time he resigned from Congress; his bills for this treatment were paid by the extremely generous insurance provided to members of Congress.
The problem with Medicare Part D from a cost containment standpoint is that it specifically prohibits the government from negotiating with drug companies over the price of drugs paid for by Part D. The Veteran’s Administration, which does negotiate with drug companies, pays much less for drugs (and refuses to cover some drugs.) It is clear that Mr. Tauzin protected the drug companies in the passage of Part D legislation, and for this protection, he received a cozy sinecure in the PhMRA. The PhMRA actually outbid the Motion Picture Association of America for Mr. Tauzin’s services; they had offered him $1.5 million a year to be their head lobbyist (see New York Times article below.)
The point is that legislation which enshrines advantages enjoyed by large companies, coincidentally saddling ordinary citizens with cumbersome, unaffordable bureaucracy, is brought into being by politicians who are elected by large majorities and frequently have long-term tenures in office. These politicians sell access and privileges to lobbyists who provide them with campaign money, endorsements, and infrastructure that creates positive publicity which, in turn, makes voters think that he (it’s usually a him) is “on their side.” In this case, the administration of what appears to be a benefit for Medicare-eligible citizens, drug payment, becomes a cash cow for the companies that provide the drugs and a headache for consumers (see the notorious “donut hole.”)
Wikipedia reports that Mr. Tauzin is now on the Board of Directors of Louisiana Healthcare Group. One other, related note: Tauzin was originally a Democrat, but switched to Republican (he apparently said the Democrats were unfriendly to conservatives and complained that President Clinton had welshed on a deal he had cut to stop a certain energy tax– see this New York Times article) in 1995.
Another favorite project of Mr. Tauzin’s (see the same New York Times article) was to start hunting clubs. He would buy land and then sell memberships in hunting clubs that allowed members to hunt exclusively on that land. The members were always lobbyists, who had money to spend on hunting club memberships. His biggest deal, apparently, was in 2003, when he committed a million dollars to buy 1,500 acres in south Texas to hunt deer. He signed up a number of lobbyists as members and claimed that he paid the same fee as the rest of the members to hunt there. The process of buying land, then selling memberships in hunting clubs for that land to lobbyists is clearly a conflict of interest in which he sells favors to lobbyists who pay for participation in his schemes; it is also completely legal.
Mr. Tauzin’s son, Billy Tauzin III, lost a very close race to succeed Mr. Tauzin as Representative to the US Congress in Louisiana’s 3rd District, to a Democrat.
An article in the online BC Business (of Canada) (linked here) describes the serious loss of environmental objectivity in Canada related to drastic changes in the process for assessment of business projects for their environmental impacts. In 2010, the Canada Environmental Assessment Administration’s budget was cut by 40% to $17 million and the environmental regulations were drastically overhauled to remove federal protection for 98 percent of Canada’s rivers and streams. The Fisheries Act was changed to remove explicit habitat protection for all fish. The process of environmental assessment for industrial projects was changed to allow the companies proposing projects to hire their own environmental consultants to do project assessments and provide “self-regulation.”
The result has been a confusing, poorly regulated system that confuses industry and provides no protection for the environment. Companies that hire and pay for their own assessment consultants can pressure those consultants to give reports favorable to their positions and projects. At the very least, a consultant who gives a negative report will find he gets no repeat business. Despite this freedom, companies complain that the laws are confusing and the changes have resulted in considerable uncertainty.
With the fall in gas prices, the most damaging projects have been put on hold temporarily. However, mines are still active, and they go through the same process of self-assessment and self-regulation. Consulting firms are under heavy pressure to provide favorable reports and gloss over any environmental impacts that may occur. The article reports on interviews with anonymous scientists who have worked for the consulting firms that demonstrate the drawbacks of the regulatory process.
Instead of evaluations done by scientists employed by government agencies that regulate environmental impacts of industry, outside scientists who are designated Registered Professional Biologists can vouch for the lack of impact that a project will have. These biologists are hired and paid for by the companies, so they are beholden to them for support and repeat business.
Environmental assessment began in the 1970’s in the US with the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act. This same process was adopted worldwide; in Canada, laws passed in 1995 started the Canadian environmental protection agency. The American Environmental Protection Agency has continued to aggressively attack environmental problems and polluters, but the Canadian agency has been slashed and rendered ineffective by the conservative government currently in power.
In a reversal of open scientific discourse, Environment Canada has prevented its scientists from speaking to the press after they publish scientific articles in major journals. A particularly notorious case occurred in 2011 when the agency refused to allow Dr. David Tarasick to speak to journalists about his ozone layer research when it was published in Nature. The written policy of the environmental agency and other government agencies is that its scientists must have explicit permission to speak to journalists before they can communicate; this policy makes muzzling of scientists easy.
The major problem with the environment in Canada is that the conservative government has gone to great lengths to gut previous advances in environmental policy and the media has been rendered silent by the government’s explicit policy of muzzling its scientists. One particularly egregious example of the government’s environmental policy is the free rein that has been given to oil companies to extract tar sands oil from large areas of the Canadian Midwest. The environmental damage that has been caused by extraction of tar sands oil is enormous and completely unreported. Only the battle over the Keystone XL pipeline has allowed any of this damage to be covered in American news.
The pipeline for tar sands oil must not be allowed to continue through the United States because it represents an easy out for Canadian developers; all the issues related to the extraction of tar sands oil must be aired in American news media.
