U.S. Environmental Satellite System ‘Is At Risk Of Collapse’ And Could Decline 75% By 2020

Hat tip to Vinland of Silent Country for alerting me to this story.

Despite spending nearly a trillion and a half dollars more than it has taken it from taxes every year for the past four years, the federal government is still having difficulties maintaining its basic services. Here is Think Progress with the story:

The Nation’s leading scientists have issued a stark warning: America’s ability to monitor the environment is rapidly diminishing. And if we don’t properly fund our satellite capabilities, the country could lose three quarters of its Earth observation systems by 2020.

That alarming conclusion comes from the National Research Council in a new report assessing the progress of the nation’s Earth observation programs. In short: our leading scientific institutions aren’t actually making much progress.

Rather, a lack of funding and infrastructure will result in “a rapid decline” in our ability to monitor extreme weather and changes to the climate.

Like everything else, it all comes back to money...in this case, the lack of money for anything other than entitlement programs and defense war contractors:

There are three major factors contributing to this unprecedented decline in Earth monitoring capabilities: budget cuts, a rapidly aging fleet of satellites, and a lack of launch capabilities.

The budgetary issues have been ongoing. According to the NSA progress report, NASA’s Earth science program still hasn’t been funded to the requested $2 billion to meet future objectives.

And as Climate Progress reported last year, Republican lawmakers proposed slashing $1.2 billion from NOAA’s funding levels, cutting into satellite programs. The satellite programs were eventually funded to requested levels, but future funding is uncertain. Senate lawmakers have proposed moving NOAA’s satellite program over to NASA where operational efficiencies could potentially save money.

Officials at these agencies say that more money is needed to replace the fleet of aging satellites that will inevitably fail in the coming years. According to the NSA report, there’s also a severe lack of launch vehicles for Earth satellites that “directly threatens programmatic robustness.”

After all, satellites aren’t much good without a way to launch them.

If this story doesn't portend a society in the early stages of collapse, I don't know what would.

Storm Chasing 'Morons' Hinder Rescues

The headline above is not mine, but the one that actually appeared above this article from the Maine Sunday Telegram:

Given life-threatening wind, hail, lightning and flying debris, chasing tornadoes would seem harrowing enough.

Now add to that what many agree is a new and growing danger on the edge of the violent vortexes: people -- hundreds and hundreds of regular people.

People risking their lives, gawkers clogging roadways, some with kids in the backseats of their cars or in the beds of their pickups. They sit poised with cellphone cameras, stop dead in the middle of lanes beneath roadway bridges, travel at breakneck speeds for the chance to get up close and personal with one of nature's most awesome and awful displays.

Kansas' Chancy Smith, the director of emergency medical services for Dickinson County -- raked by a series of tornadoes April 14 -- caused a minor storm of his own when, after the tornadoes, he publicly called the throng of chasers who flooded his county "morons" for risking their lives and possibly the lives of others by impeding emergency services.

Raked by quick rebuke, Smith has since said he did not mean to malign legitimate storm spotters and chasers or scientists who do much to help the National Weather Service predict and track major storms.

Experienced, longtime storm chasers have expressed similar worries.

They're talking about the others, the hundreds of rubberneckers, gawkers and severe-storm shutterbugs who clogged the exit off Interstate 70 as the tornado swept past Solomon, Kan., parked as if they were at a drive-in movie.

Meanwhile, he said, his firefighters clocked others tearing 60 mph and more through the tiny town in pursuit of the twister like they were kids after a lost balloon. He said some drove, rumbling past fire trucks and over downed, live power lines where a damaged natural gas facility was spewing the explosive gas.

"There were morons out there. There were plenty," Smith reiterated to The Kansas City Star on Wednesday. "I was a police officer for 17 years and a director of emergency services for seven, and I have never, ever seen that many people converge on a storm. There were hundreds and hundreds ...

"My cohorts in other communities are saying, 'Don't apologize for what you said. We have all had this problem.' "

It has certainly hit a nerve among emergency services people and longtime storm chasers who concede that, in recent years, it seems that witnessing tornadoes up close has turned from a risky endeavor attempted by adrenalin addicts to a family spectator sport. Local high school students looking for tornadoes using apps and websites on their smartphones have become common.

"I really couldn't tell you why it's occurring," said S. Joe Koch II, the emergency management director in Saline County, Kan. "It is becoming more common for people to go out and see these tornadoes."

So common, in fact, that when the National Weather Service issued its early warning for last weekend, alerting the public that scores of tornadoes were likely to sweep through Tornado Alley -- the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains where tornadoes are most frequent – Koch sent out an alert of his own to emergency personnel: Expect an influx of people.

Meteorologists and others said the reason is clear: technology, TV news and entertainment.

It is no doubt just a matter of time before one of these idiots causes a fatal accident or gets killed getting too close to one of these storms. Because that's what natural disasters have become in this addle-minded, entertainment obsessed culture of ours--just another spectacle to be treated as if it were on a teevee screen and not a very real tragedy for those whose lives are torn apart right in front of the morons who are chasing the storms. This almost makes me root for higher gasoline prices to help put an end to such stupidity.


Bonus: "And as it came towards me, I swear, it sounded like a train"

U.S. Water Wars Heating Up

Warnings about potential future water shortages have been sounded repeatedly for many years now, but we are only just beginning to see their reality starting rear its ugly head. The Weather Channel just this week posted a story outlining the regional water war flare ups that are already occurring within the United States:

Americans have enjoyed centuries of abundant natural resources, but when it comes to fresh water that may no longer be the case. Recent droughts in the southern and western United States have exposed a mismanagement of nature's most valuable resource. Now the fight for clean water is heating up.

States have always fought over rivers and lakes, but lawsuits don't yield more water. Early laws and agreements were based on the assumption there would always be enough water to go around, but Americans are quickly learning that's not the case.

Many reservoirs were built to control flooding, and help farmers irrigate their crops. But those reservoirs became popular places to live and recreate, increasing the demand for water to stay locally to sustain the booming economies.

There may never be a definitive resolution to this conflict, but one thing is clear. Americans will soon be forced to decide how to allocate our most valuable resource, and adapt to the ensuing culture shift.

The article then goes on to describe each in detail. Here are the ones they identified:

Chattahoochee River
Source: Blue Ridge Mountains, Northeast Georgia
Flows To: Apalachicola Bay (Gulf of Mexico)
Length: 430 miles
Passes Through: 3 States

Klamath River
Source: Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon
Flows To: Pacific Ocean
Length: 263 miles
Passes Through: Oregon and California

Colorado River
Source: Rocky Mountains, Colorado
Flows To: Gulf of California
Length: 1450 miles
Passes Through: 5 States and Mexico

Colorado River Watershed
Source: Texas Panhandle
Flows To: Matagorda Bay (Gulf of Mexico)
Length: 862 miles
Passes Through: Texas

More details are available at the link for the story.


Bonus: Visions of a drought...with SWEET guitar work

Welch’s: 95 Percent Of Grapes In Southwest Michigan Destroyed

Here is another reminder that climate change doesn't mean just warming, but a greater frequency of weather EXTREMES. It was just a month ago when Michigan was basking in unprecedented late-winter 80 degree weather. And then came the reversal, as reported by a local Michigan television station:

SAINT JOSEPH, Mich. - For Welch’s grape growers, it was the most devastating frost in Michigan’s history. That’s according to the National Grape Cooperation, better known as Welch’s Foods.

Cold temperatures wiped out 95 percent of all the juice grapes in Berrien, Cass and Van Buren County.

“You know it’s a complete wipeout,” said John Jasper, a surveyor for Welch’s Foods. Jasper said more than 10,000 acres of juice grapes were destroyed Thursday morning across Southwest Michigan.

Jasper had a difficult job Friday. He and two other Welch’s surveyors tried to figure out how many grapes the company could expect this year at harvest. “I went through hundreds of acres before I found a spot that had a live bud,” he said.

“I’ve probably been to 100 farms in the last two days,” said Jasper. “The majority (are destroyed) 95 percent.”

According to the National Grape Cooperation, Berrien, Cass and Van Buren farmers collected $24 million in 2011. Jasper said in 2012 they would be lucky to net $2 million.

The situation gets worse for Paul Bixby of Bixby Orchards in Berrien Springs. “Mostly on this tree, everything is gone,” Bixby said pointing out a devastated apple orchard.

Bixby didn’t only lose the grapes. He estimates Thursday’s frost killed half of his apple crop. “You can see the black and you can see five in that cluster. All of them look the same.”
“A lot of these guys know the numbers and they know they’re in trouble,” said Jasper. He said so many juice grapes are gone it’s not cost effective for farmers to harvest the grapes that survived.

Jasper said Welch’s Foods gets one-sixth of their grapes from Southwest Michigan. “This is probably our worst year,” he said. The frost could force the company to change its recipe for some of its products.

I guess we should prepare for higher grape juice prices, among other things.


Bonus: Why Moby Grape, of course...what else?

The East Coast Is Burning

The downside of the recent wave of unprecedented warm weather in U.S. is now making itself felt in the form of widespread outbreak of wildfires. Here is CBS News with the details:

Along the Eastern Seaboard, firefighters are battling a string of wildfires after weeks of unusually warm and dry weather. Fires are burning in nine states - from New Hampshire to Florida - where it is, ironically, "Wildfire Awareness Week."

Wildfires broke out up and down the East Coast Monday, fueled by whipping winds and dry conditions.

On New York's Long Island, hundreds of firefighters raced to keep flames from closing in on Brookhaven National Lab, a nuclear physics facility. The blaze swallowed up 1,000 acres, destroyed at least two homes and sent three firefighters to the hospital.

Steve Bellone, a Suffolk County executive, told CBS News, "This fire is as serious as it gets. It is not yet under control."

Neal Coleman's son shot video of the fire as it crept dangerously close to their home. "I'm telling you the fire was over 100 foot tall," Coleman said. "It was unbelievable. You see it in the movies and on TV, but until you're there, you're like, 'Wow, I think I'm in trouble.'"

Officials say the fire is 50 percent contained, but they warn homes there are still in jeopardy. Firefighters say they have no idea when they will have the fire there under control.

In New Jersey, another inferno - which officials are calling suspicious - is on track to burn through 1,000 acres. On Monday, it came within just a few feet of some homes.

Resident Nick Sama said, "It was very horrifying. It was too close for comfort. It was literally behind our home."

The dry, windy weather also helped feed flames in Pennsylvania and Connecticut where a brush fire lined a railroad track. Nearby homes and businesses were evacuated.

But it wasn't just the Northeast on alert. The National Weather Service issued fire warnings throughout the Mid-Atlantic region along with parts of the Midwest and South.

In Virginia, helicopters dumped water from high above to try to douse flames.

The wildfire outbreak stretched all the way down to Miami where a fast-moving fire caught residents by surprise.

One resident there said, ""Actually that's the biggest fire I've ever seen in my life."

Government forecasters say 2012 has started out warmer than any year on record. Last month was 8.6 degrees warmer than normal, and there were more than 15,000 record high temperatures in March. Every state had at least one.

Here in Virginia where I live, we have had very little rainfall since the unusually warm weather began a month ago, and that was after a virtually snow free winter. I recall that back in 2008 we suffered through a severe drought that lasted all summer and into the early autumn. Given how dry it is already, if that happens again it could be a very interesting summer in these parts.


Bonus: Sorry, Jimi, but you may not want to stand next to these fires

March 2012 Sets Record For Warmest On Record In The U.S.

Deniers are gonna deny and haters are gonna hate...but reality doesn't give a good Goddamn. Here is the Weather Channel with the details:

Last week we revealed the dozens of cities that had their warmest March on record. Now we have the official word from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that March 2012 was the warmest March on record in the contiguous United States. In addition, the January through March period of 2012 was the warmest first quarter of the year on record. Records date back to 1895 in both cases.

NOAA also released information stating that the early March tornado outbreak in the Ohio Valley and Southeast was the first billion-dollar weather disaster of 2012.

Also, check out this amusingly ignorant reader comment that was posted with the article:

Jim Tappendorf · Coleman, Wisconsin
this winter was one we'll probably never see again. I was riding my motorcycle with only a T-shirt on March 17 th and 18th in Coleman Wi. about 45 miles north of Green Bay. Go global warming.

What's the matter with Wisconsin?

The REAL Lesson From Obama's "Keystone Cave-In"

Last Friday, in the wake of President Hopey-Changey abruptly changing course on the Keystone Pipeline project, Rolling Stone political writer Jeff Goodell wrote a piece called, "Lessons from Obama's Keystone Cave-In," which was particularly notable because it demonstrated yet again that if you don't understand the dire implications of peak oil you are hardly going to learn the right lessons from any energy-related decision made by our so-called "leaders." Just for the heck of it, I thought I'd go through the four lessons listed by Goodell and offer a rebuttal for each of them:

1. "All of the above" = "Drill, Baby, Drill"
Obama talks a good game about developing "green" energy sources, but here he is, doubling down on oil. Although this speech was clearly political theater, I expected him to appease anti-pipeline activists by using his visit to Cushing – the belly of the fossil-fuel beast – to remind Big Oil that not only has he promised to yank away $4 billion in subsidies, but that oil is, as he said the other day, "the fuel of the past." Ha! Instead, Obama offered up a speech that would make Sarah Palin proud, reminding us how, over the last three years, "I’ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore." And he crowed: "We are drilling all over the place now." And as for pipelines, he bragged that "we’ve added enough new oil and gas pipelines to encircle the earth." Climate blogger Joe Romm rightly called the address "Obama's worst speech ever."

Okay, so Obama seemingly contradicted himself in two different speeches before two different audiences. That happens all the time with politicians. So which time do you suppose he was lying? The time he mouthed an empty platitude about oil being "the fuel of the past," or when he started bragging about his administration's pro-drilling record?

As the old saying goes, Money Talks and Bullshit Walks. In this case, the latter example was money while the former was the bullshit.

2. If Obama gets re-elected, the northern half of the Keystone pipeline is going to get built.
He did not say this explicitly in his speech yesterday, but the political code is perfectly clear. Obama is essentially endorsing tar sands oil production, with all the environmental wreckage it causes, as well as dooming the Midwest to more pipeline spills. It also means that investment dollars will now flow to boosting the production capacity of the tar sands operations, which in turn will pump up the industry's political clout even more. In effect, there’s no stopping the tar sands now. The dirty bitumen is gonna get dug up and refined and piped down to the Gulf and slimed across the world.

It should have been perfectly obvious even before Obama gave his speech that the whole damn pipeline was eventually going to be approved. All along, he was just trying to run the clock out until after the 2012 election and hoping there wasn't another spike in gasoline prices to force his hand before he was safe from ever facing the voters again. Well, the spike happened as you might have noticed, and Obama quickly realized there were more votes to be lost from being seen by Spoiled Rotten Nation to be standing in the way of America accessing another major source of oil (even if it will do nothing to bring down prices in the short term) than he will likely lose in support from environmentalists. Speaking of which:

3. Enviros have no muscle.
When the State Department last year decided to block the pipeline at least temporarily, enviros cheered. Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called it "a victory of truth over misinformation," and writer/activist Bill McKibben said "it isn’t just the right call, it’s the brave call." But that bravery wilted quickly in the face of high gas prices and Republican attacks, lame as they have been (the pipeline will have no measureable impact on gas prices in America today, tomorrow, or ever). The unmistakable subtext of this speech was: Tough shit, Frances and Bill and all your earnest followers. Are you really gonna vote for Romney in November?

Of course environmentalists won't be voting for Romney, and that is exactly why Obama was able to make the political calculation I outlined in my response to lesson 2. Yeah, a lot of environmentalists might stay home in November, or they might choose to throw away their votes by casting them for the Green Party, but they WON'T be voting for Romney and that will blunt any political effect their protest might have. Some of them will no doubt even cave in and vote for Hopey-Changey anyway, using the totally self-defeating lesser of two evils "logic."

The real lesson on this point ought to be obvious. The environmentalists, as well as those who believe in economic justice and those who are opposed to America's big business, war and empire foreign policy, DO NOT LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY. In a democracy you have real choices at the ballot box. As non-elite Americans living in a full blown corporatocracy, we most assuredly do not have any choice on issues of real importance that affect the economy or our future other than to throw our votes away on third party candidates who stand zero chance of ever being elected.

4. Obama is still wimping out on climate change.
Duh. But people had hopes. During the 2008 campaign, Obama talked about slowing the rising seas and putting a price on carbon pollution. After the election, he hired John Holdren as science advisor and Steven Chu to run to the Department of Energy, both of whom understand the dangers of climate change as well as anyone. Didn’t help. Today, despite the fact that global carbon pollution is accelerating and extreme weather is becoming the norm (it’s a sad but revealing irony that, as Brad Johnson points out, Cushing has been ground zero for climate disasters in the U.S.), Obama won’t even mention the words "climate" or "global warming," much less demonstrate any leadership on the single most dangerous threat that civilization has ever faced. Instead, he has shifted the conversation to energy independence. That may be a worthy goal, but if it’s pursued without regard to the risks of climate change, it will only increase the danger of future catastrophes.

Obama most certainly is "wimping out" on climate change. Why? Because he is a product of a system that is completely dependent upon never ending economic growth for its very survival, and curtailing the burning of fossil fuels would destroy that system pretty quickly. Obama would have to be politically suicidal NOT to wimp out on climate change, and the world only very rarely ever sees the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev achieving high political office.

Goodell then concludes his piece with this:

In any crass political calculation, drilling for oil will always win more votes than putting a price on carbon. But if I recall what I was taught in fifth-grade American government class, we elect presidents to do more than crass political calculations. Obama wants to be thought of as the president who freed us from foreign oil. But if he doesn’t show some political courage, he may well be remembered as the president who cooked the planet.

Excuse me for being so blunt, but what a childish statement. I don't know how old Mr. Goodell is, but the last president I can recall who didn't make every single decision based upon "crass political calculation" was Jimmy Carter, and we all know how well that worked out for him.

So many environmentalists just refuse to get it into their heads that humanity has painted itself into the tightest of corners. Beginning in earnest about a century ago, we tapped into the greatest energy resource nature could have possibly bestowed upon us. Instead of wisely managing that very nonrenewable resource, we exploited it as quickly as we could and allowed our population to expand in a very short time to well beyond what the planet can possibly sustain when that resource runs out, even if the resulting environmental damage from burning that resource wasn't also a hugely negative factor.

Not only America, but all of humanity is barreling towards the cliff at breakneck speed, and it is likely already too late to put on the breaks. "Leaders" like Obama have been put into place by his billionaire backers in order to pull the wool over the eyes of the masses and keep the game going for as long as possible. That is the real lesson to be learned from Obama's Keystone cave-in, and accepting it is the key to becoming part of the reality-based community.


Bonus: "I believe before the world ever got that bad, I'd be on my knees a-crying"

AccuWeather's Excuse For A Horribly Blown Seasonal Forecast: The Tsunami Did It

If Rick Santorum were to get his way, private company AccuWeather would no doubt replace the "socialist" National Weather Service as the nation's primary forecaster of weather. So what is the problem with a corporation doing on a for profit basis what the government already does for "free?" Just that you know damn well that a private company won't give predictions that its clients don't want to hear, such as telling an oil company that yes, Virginia, climate change is both real and manmade.

But the other problem is that corporations are always motivated to provide a service at the lowest possible cost, which mean the products they produce often suck balls. And AccuWeather just recently proved how badly it can actually suck balls. Here is the Chicago Tribune with the story:

A meteorologist for AccuWeather — the forecasting company that predicted a winter so bad, "people in Chicago are going to want to move" — has a theory for the recent Midwest heat wave: Japanese tsunami debris.

AccuWeather.com made headlines last fall, you may recall, with breathlessly apocalyptic predictions for the season ahead.

Five months later, winter 2011-12 is in the books as the ninth warmest on record, punctuated by a stretch of historically high temperatures over the last week, and the Chicago area remains remarkably populous.

"We're wrong sometimes; we can admit it," meteorologist and AccuWeather.com news director Henry Margusity said. "It was not exactly the best forecast."

Specifically, AccuWeather said we were in for a fifth consecutive winter with more than 50 inches of snow. In reality, just 19.8 inches of the white stuff has fallen, according to WGN chief meteorologist Tom Skilling, not only well below AccuWeather's prediction, but also 14.3 inches below the yearly average.

And of course, the company's excuse for blowing the forecast so badly is a real doozy:

Margusity was a good sport about AccuWeather's swing and miss, even offering up a retroactive long-shot theory for the warm winter and recent heat wave — the drifting debris field from last year's devastating Japanese tsunami seems to be sending warm air aloft above the Pacific Ocean, which could be contributing to warmer temperatures here, Margusity said.

"If you match up where that debris field is right now with where the warmer-than-normal water temperatures are, they match up perfectly," he said, also citing what proved to be a weakening La Nina pattern last fall and the lack of expected so-called Greenland blocking.

Oh sure, that makes perfect sense. Nope, it couldn't possibly have been the result of a rapidly changing climate...you know, the same factor that likely greatly contributed to Chicago experiencing nearly two full weeks of 80 degree temperatures this March. The same city which averages only one 80 degree March day EVERY 14 YEARS. Perish the thought. The tsunami did it. Must have been all of the radioactivity from the Fukushima accident that got dumped into the ocean that somehow warmed up the air or something.

Oh, and not to be a contrarian or anything, but you AccuWeather guys do know that the tsunami happened six months BEFORE you made that ridiculous forecast, right? So how come you didn't think of the "tsunami effect" at the time? Bit of an oversight, I'd say.

The good news is that the aforementioned Santorum, who in the past has received campaign contributions from AccuWeather's president, is seeing his presidential campaign slowly sinking beneath the waves (ha! a tsunami pun!). The bad news is, as I posted on March 16th, that the National Weather Service is already experiencing budget cuts that will no doubt hamper its effectiveness going forward. But hey, take comfort. AccuWeather is now predicting a "warmer than normal" summer, so maybe given the company's track record it won't be as bad as everybody is expecting after the unprecedented March heat wave.


Bonus: "Well, there's gonna be a snowstorm...and the teevee is going wild. They got nothing else to think of...and they're letting me go home"

National Weather Service Facing A Proposed $39 Million Budget Cut

You would have to have been living under a very deeply buried rock not to notice that the weather in America has been increasingly volatile in recent years. The record breaking March tornado outbreak of last week drove that point home yet again. Unfortunately, it appears as though the agency charged with getting warnings out to the public of impending severe weather is about to take a hit to its budget. Here is a South Carolina television station with the details:

The National Weather Service is facing a different kind of storm.

It's not a hurricane or tornado, but instead a proposed budget cut of $39 million dollars. The government agency that issues daily forecasts, in addition to severe weather warnings, could have their budget cut by as much as four percent.

National Weather Service offices across the country, including the one in Charleston, have had to gradually cut back on travel over the last four or five years.

"It makes it difficult for conferences when we are trying to get technology and things going, but we cut back about 75 percent on travel, so we are pretty limited now in what we can do," said Frank Alsheimer, meteorologist at the National Weather Service.

"Fortunately, technology helps us in some respects in that with the use of things like webinars that we are producing over the Internet that we don't lose as much training as you would if we just took 75 percent off the top."

If the budget reduction is passed, Alsheimer said it's likely that there will be a delay in getting some new technology.

"One of the issues that will come up is the fact that these new technologies that we introduce help increase our lead times, help give the forecasters more tools to do a better and better service for the American people," said Alsheimer. "As these new technologies are delayed, it means we all have to wait for these improvements that we are expecting as years go by."

The budget cut proposal also includes cutting the number of information technology officers, across the country.

"Each forecast office has an ITO or information technology officer, which essentially helps us transition new data, new information to the forecasters to help make their decisions," said Alsheimer. "The thought is that a fair amount of that can be done remotely rather than on station. Whether that can be cleanly done remains to be seen."

Without an information technology officer at each office, he said there could be several issues.

"It will start from simply not being able to get technology installed as quickly in our office as to a worse case scenario where during a severe weather event, we have a failure and we don't have someone on site to correct that failure and we wind up not being able to perform our mission."

The mission at the National Weather Service is to protect life and property; a mission that could be challenged if the $39 million dollar budget cut is approved.

Like so many other similar reports recently, the real story here is that this is just the beginning. Right now, the federal government is merely trimming the fat around the edges as it takes its first tentative steps to address its massive budget imbalance. Much deeper cuts will be coming in the future, and when that happens the National Weather Service will slowly lose its ability to warn about the development of severe weather even as the climate grows increasingly volatile. As Americans, we have a hard time imagining there ever being less available technology servicing any aspect of our lives, but those days are rapidly approaching nonetheless.


Bonus: "It's strange how hard it rains now"

Hey, Senator Inhofe, It Was 67 Degrees Fahrenheit in DC Yesterday

Back on August 19th of last year, I posted a Friday Rant called, "Hey, Senator Inhofe, It's HOT Outside," in which I called out the senior Senator from Oklahoma for his family's dumbass publicity stunt of building an igloo during one of the blizzards that struck DC two winters ago in order to mock Al Gore and others who are concerned about climate change. Specifically, I blasted the global warming denying Inhofe for not subsequently acknowledging this past summer's record breaking heat wave in The Sooner State:

So to recap, Okalahoma's record for the highest monthly temperature ever recorded was just smashed by an astonishing one full degree Fahrenheit. And yet, there was nary a peep about it from the esteemed Senator Inhofe and his merry band of inbreds.

All of this almost makes me wish I lived in Oklahoma. During July I would have had this very strong desire to go find Senator Inhofe's house, wait until about four o'clock in the afternoon, and then break open a couple of eggs and fry them right on his front walk. Then I would have held up my own sign for all passersby to see: "Pray for Cooler Weather...Maybe that Will Help."

Well, guess what? After Oklahoma suffered through a summer season right out of Dante's Inferno, the locale where the "Honorable" Senator Inhofe spends the lion's share of his time is literally going through a year without a winter. We've had exactly one truly cold night so far here in the DC area during this non-winter of 2011-2012, just this past week when the temps dipped into the teens. Other than that we've had maybe three or four nights when it has been below 30 degrees, and the current 10-day forecast is for more of the same through mid-January.

Yesterday, the mercury soared all the way to 67 degrees, and it felt more like early May than January. Even more pertinent is a factoid I read just this past week that DC has not experienced a temperature reading below zero degrees Fahrenheit since 1994, which is astonishing since before that time it was not all that uncommon an occurrence during the coldest months of the year.

So what I want to know is what does Senator Inhofe's family have to say about this run of extremely warm weather we are now experiencing? The silence on that front has been deafening. If you're going to be assholes whenever there is a snowstorm, you're setting yourself up for this kind of criticism. Even at the time their little publicity stunt was monumentally stupid because despite the fact that DC experienced three major winter storms two years ago, each time the temperatures rebounded into the 30s and 40s almost immediately afterward rather than going into a deep freeze, which used to be the norm.

I guess it's true what Stephen Colbert told George Bush the Lesser years ago at the White House Correspondent's Dinner: reality does have a well known liberal bias.


Bonus: John Fogerty knows what's going on

Up to a Half Billion Trees Killed by the Texas Drought

The reports just keep rolling in about effects of the hellish drought Texas suffered through this past year. Here is Reuters with yet another horrible story:

The massive drought that has dried out Texas over the past year has killed as many as half a billion trees, according to new estimates from the Texas Forest Service.

"In 2011, Texas experienced an exceptional drought, prolonged high winds, and record-setting temperatures," Forest Service Sustainable Forestry chief Burl Carraway told Reuters on Tuesday. "Together, those conditions took a severe toll on trees across the state."

He said that between 100 million and 500 million trees were lost. That figure does not include trees killed in wildfires that have scorched an estimated 4 million acres in Texas since the beginning of 2011. A massive wildfire in Bastrop, east of Austin in September that destroyed 1,600 homes, is blamed for killing 1.5 million trees.

The tree loss is in both urban and rural areas and represents as much as 10 percent of all the trees in the state, Carraway said.

"This is a generational event," Barry Ward, executive director of the nonprofit Trees for Houston, which supports forestry efforts, told Reuters on Tuesday. "Mature trees take 20 or 30 years to re-grow. This will make an aesthetic difference for decades to come."

He said the loss will affect the state in many ways. For example, there is increased fire danger because all the dead trees are now fuel, Ward said.

There's little doubt that should Texas suffer a series of summers like this past one that the quality of life, to say nothing of the ability of the landscape to support life, is going to plummet fast. And yet hope still prevails:

Forest Resource Analyst Chris Edgar said that trees and forests are amazingly resilient.

"Loss of trees due to adverse weather conditions is something that is a part of the natural process of the forest," said Edgar, who works for the Texas Forest Service.

One of the worst areas of die-off occurred in the part of east Texas known as the Piney Woods, he said. That is one of the country's leading producers of wood and paper products. It is still unclear what the long-term damage may be to that industry, which is one of the largest agricultural employers in the state.

Carraway said that what Mother Nature has damaged, Mother Nature can repair.

"Assuming the rainfall levels get back to normal, I certainly see the forest being able to recover," he said.

That's an iffy assumption at this point, Mr. Edgar. I hope for the sake of you and everyone else living in Texas that you are proven correct. But I sure wouldn't invest in any money in Texas woodlands right about now.


Bonus: Seems like an appropriate time for this song

Year of Misfortune: 2011 was the Costliest Year Ever for Natural Disasters in the U.S.

The deniers can deny, the haters can hate and the apologists for the fossil fuel industry can continue to obfuscate, but that doesn't change the fact that 2011 was off the scale as far as extreme weather events in the United States (as well as elsewhere in the world). Here is Bloomberg with the details:

Historic U.S. weather catastrophes took an unprecedented toll in human lives and livelihood in 2011. At least 12 natural disasters wreaked more than $1 billion in damage apiece, according to the U.S. National Climate Data Center. When all the lost crops have been tallied, insurance claims filed and ravaged assets accounted for, the number is likely to be 14, with a total cost of more than $50 billion. The previous high was eight, in 2008.

The frequency of mass weather calamities has been increasing since 1970, based on records going back to 1910. It's a trend that's "virtually certain" to continue, according to a recent United Nations report by a panel of dozens of scientists. Rising global temperatures put more water vapor in the air, intensifying storms. Climate change also exacerbates the impact of drought, heat waves and wildfires.

Time will tell, of course, whether the extremes we experienced this past year become the "new normal," or whether things get even worse. But there is one thing for sure: given the fragile state of the U.S. economy, more years like the one we just went through could not possibly happen at a worse time.


Bonus: Just a reminder of how scary the live footage of the Tuscaloosa tornado was

Climate Challenge, or How I Learned to Start Pandering and Love the Pork

I played the Climate Challenge game recently after discovering it on the Games for Change website and found it to be a provocative look at the politics and policy solutions related to global warming. While the gameplay has a few blind spots (mainly the lack of good feedback on economic performance) and gets a bit repetitive, Climate Challenge communicates and encourages reflection on some important and perennial political lessons.

The gist is that you "play as the President of Europe from 2000 to 2100 [!?], and attempt to reduce your carbon emissions while maintaining vital national services and remaining popular with the electorate." This is tougher than it seems. There are five variables you must monitor—finances, energy, food, water, and emissions—and five policy areas with which to affect these variables—national, trade, agriculture & industry, local, and household. You are evaluated at the end of your public service on indicators of environment, wealth, and popularity.

For my first attempt I figured why not go for broke with an aggressive Green platform: I ended up getting booted out of office after four rounds. My approval rating fell through the floor when I neglected the food supply and the water infrastructure in favor of fuel taxes and rapid expansion of renewable energy, and my administration was punished by climate-induced floods and heat waves that further compounded my popularity problems. Game Over. Chalk it up to the game's learning curve.

Periodically during Climate Challenge, Europe must engage in environmental diplomacy with the other blocs: North America, South America, Africa, South Asia, Pacifica, and North Asia. The negotiation stage is minimal and it's not clear what's at stake, but you have the option to subsidize green development in each region. Presumably these gestures rally the negotiators to your side. But what is your side? While emissions targets give you something to aim for, they also make your job harder.

On my second pass I tried to be a more sensitive leader while still negotiating in good faith for emissions reductions on the international stage. Fortunately the game is loaded with great policy choices with which to meet these goals—energy innovation and efficiency, transportation and green building regulations, and investments in basic research.

I found that one way to keep my rating high was to focus on subsidizing things people wanted, like home solar, and to steer clear of things they didn't, such as carbon taxes—promote, don't restrict—which seems to adhere to what Roger Pielke calls his "iron law" of climate politics.

Climate Challenge also offers some tempting public programs of uncertain value (within the game environment): launch a space program, host the Olympics, send foreign aid. These tend to hemorrhage money, energy, and emissions, but the voters like them.

I played a final round with an exaggerated pro-business approach, funding things like nuclear projects and carbon capture, yet even then I somehow managed to throw the economy into hyperinflation by 2100 and allow criminals to stalk the streets. Clearly the game needs better feedback on the socioeconomic front, as my approval rating ran high throughout.

While the gameplay is just a bunch of clicking, the real action happens on the conceptual level, and there are some nice contextual touches that teach the reality of nimbyism, resource limitations, and political trade-offs. For example, after each election you get a newspaper report on how your policies have been received. My favorite one said: "The most popular policy was 'Spin your policies.'" A few dollars spent on savvy PR can go a long way.

Global Carbon Footprint

(Click to enlarge)

(HT: Stanford Kay via Big Picture)

US: No climate deal without all aboard

Chief Climate Envoy Todd Stern
© AFP/File Ronaldo Schemidt

AFP

NEW YORK (AFP) - The United States said Wednesday it opposed a climate deal that does not bring aboard both wealthy and developing countries as feuding over nations' commitments dominated UN-led talks in Bangkok.

Todd Stern, the chief US climate envoy, said it was time to lay to rest the concept of a "firewall" between wealthy and developing countries that dates from the early 1990s -- before the rapid economic growth of China.

"Many developing countries, including large ones, continue to be fixated on preserving the firewall between developed and developing countries," Stern told a conference in New York, in a likely reference to China.


"We see this as both unjustified and incompatible with solving the problem," he told the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit. "We are not going to be part of a new agreement with a fixed, bright-line, 1992-vintage firewall."

The Kyoto Protocol required only wealthy nations to cut carbon emissions blamed for global warming, leading the United States to reject the landmark treaty.


The treaty's obligations run out at the end of next year and the European Union has led calls for a new round of Kyoto pledges as a stop-gap measure.

Japan and Russia have led opposition to a new Kyoto round as the treaty does not involve China and the United States, the two largest emitters. China and other major developing countries would welcome an extension to Kyoto.

But Stern insisted that China should be part of any future deal, saying it has surpassed France in emissions even on a per capita level.

"You cannot build a system that treats China like Chad when China is now the world's second largest economy," Stern said.

"Instead, you need to start with all the major emitters, both developed and developing, accounting for some 85% of global emissions and build out from there," Stern said.

While seeking an agreement that involves all major economies, the United States has played down the need for legally binding obligations.

The United States has instead called for each nation to submit its own national plans -- a bottom-to-top approach that would carry political weight but not necessarily legal obligations to cut a set amount of emissions.

"Don't get me wrong, we are not opposed to such obligations if they genuinely apply to all the major players," Stern said.

"But they are not really necessary; it is the national plans of countries, written into law and regulations, that count and that bind," he said.

Legal obligations are an increasingly sensitive issue for the United States.

President Barack Obama has pledged that the United States will do its part to fight climate change, but leaders of the rival Republican Party that won congressional elections last year are deeply skeptical on the issue.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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Earth Hour: A Despicable Hoax

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Nothing embodies the corporate hijacked environmental movement more than the despicable hoax that is "Earth Hour." Once a year, we are bombarded worldwide by a feel-good advertising campaign on TV, radio, billboards, fliers, in the newspaper and in every other conceivable way for an event that involves turning off the lights for one hour per year, to "take a stand against climate change."

Not only has science failed to prove that anthropogenic climate change is happening - to the extent proponents like the White House's John Holdren have relabeled "Global Warming" to "Global Climate Change" to the now most ambiguous version, "Global Climate Disruption," but the evidence suggests that the "scientists" peddling this theory have defrauded the public again and again. Worth noting, is that John Holdren himself is a creature of Harvard's Belfer Center, which is named in fact, after corrupt oil tycoon Robert Belfer. Much of the policy coming out of the Belfer Center ends up in front of delegates attending the very fraudulent and ineffective climate change summits held, most recently in Copenhagen and Cancun. 

The Corbett Report breaks down "Climate Gate."

When we look at say, Earth Hour's corporate sponsors, or the WWF's corporate sponsors, or the myriad of banksters and oilmen that steer climate policy centers like Harvard's Belfer Center we should realize that not only has big oil and the rest of the corporations defiling the planet hijacked environmentalism along with multitudes of well-intentioned activists, but these corporate interests are using it to defile the planet and its population further, only now with a perceived moral justification.

Could we expect anything less from an organization so large, with so many corporate affiliations?

The proposed solutions of course, involve greater consolidations of power in the government's hands to solve these problems - the solutions being carbon taxes that get paid directly to private bankers, rules, regulations and laws that only megalithic corporations can afford to comply with thus shutting out competition, and a laundry list of other non-effectual solutions that only empower the very corporations that have caused real, verifiable environmental damage.

Deutsche Bank's "Carbon Clock." The very idea that bankers, 
perhaps the most universally recognized mongers of greed
and human misery, actually care about the environment is 
ridiculous. When you consider Deutsche is one of the "leading
participants" in the carbon credit market, then it makes sense.

What about real environmental hazards? How about the unfettered nuclear industry, depleted uranium being dumped over the ever expanding theaters of conflict the West is engaged in, or the genetically modified plants and animals that are displacing and corrupting the natural species that inhabit this planet? Or how about the ineffective, logistical & petroleum intensive mega-agricultural industry, poisonous herbicides and pesticides dumped onto our food by companies like Monsanto, free-trade that sees tons of diesel fuel burned to bring plastic trinkets from Chinese factories to America's shores, and the list goes on ad infinitum.

Real solutions generally don't involve corporations or government, in fact, as a necessity must exclude them. The marriage between corporate interests and government regulations should be something all of us can agree on, regardless of where we sit on the political spectrum.

Real solutions involve a real education in science, technology, design, and manufacturing. This empowers people in all levels of society to accurately assess problems and apply local solutions. This, coupled with modern manufacturing technology enables more to be done on a local level, short-circuiting the petroleum intensive logistical chains WWF sponsors like Walmart couldn't live without.

Organic farming on a local level coupled with local farmers' markets eliminates entirely the need for Monsanto poison, fertilizers, and genetically modified franken-crops, along with the replacement of the petroleum intensive logistical networks that distribute big-agri's products.

In fact, when you think about it, almost all of these real solutions involve real community and local action. These are not solutions that involve policies, taxes, and regulations, but rather technology, education, constructive, pragmatic, technical solutions that not only would make our environment more livable, but make our local economies and communities more viable and self-sufficient. The catch is, and the reason why this isn't being done, you will notice that none of these activities require WWF sponsors like Walmart, Nike, IBM, Toyota, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, HSBC, Citi, IKEA, Nokia, etc.

Does it make sense then, to see why real problems and their solutions have become the target of hijackers like the corporate conglomeration that is the WWF? Does it make sense to see them offering "alternative" centralized, corporate dependent solutions that replace local activism?

Please investigate for yourself, WWF's corporate sponsors and see how many of them end up on this list, "Naming Names," which exposes the corporations and special interests that keep us at perpetual war and on the edge of financial ruin.

Do we honestly think that these corporations care about the responsible stewardship of the planet? Do they care about people? Do they care about the environment? Are they not at the center of the most horrific scandals, atrocities, and wars of our age? If you care about your environment, do yourself a favor, keep your lights on during the next "Earth Hour", and do some reading on how you can empower yourself, your community, and become independent from the petroleum hungry, world ravaging corporations that are promoting their version of "environmentalism" through hijacked organizations like the WWF. They have created in their own image a human-hating Malthusian religion of servile obedience to a world government that "promises" to fix the problems they themselves have created.

Let's be smarter than this, let's look past the slick public relations stunt that is "Earth Hour," and look around locally at real solutions. Think and act locally. You know what's wrong with your hometown and most likely you know how to fix it. Most importantly you and your neighbors can see it is in your best interest to do so, and it doesn't require charlatans like Al Gore to hold your hand, paying him carbon taxes while you do it.

For more on real solutions that not only promote freedom and liberty, but give us the tools to create cleaner and more efficient technological solutions locally please read on:

Self-Sufficiency 
Alternative Economics
The Lost Key to Real Revolution
Boycott the Globalists

Tony Cartalucci's articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at 
Land Destroyer Report.

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Local Carbon Taxes Are an Innovative Band-Aid

I must say, I'm pretty proud of the county where I grew up: Montgomery County, Maryland. It just passed the first county-level carbon tax in America. It also increased the energy consumption levy on homeowners and businesses by 85 percent. This comes as only mildly surprising for an area that has long been a fairly progressive suburb of Washington, D.C.

Combined these two new sources of revenue should generate $15 million and $112 million respectively. The sad news is that the money is needed to bridge a budget deficit, and the taxes will sunset in two years. The carbon tax applies to all sources generating more than 1 million tons of CO2 in a given year, charging them $5 per ton. Ironically, only one facility makes the cut: the Dickerson Generating Plant, a coal power station. Some of the money is set to be reinvested in an energy efficiency program for local homeowners.

The tragedy here is that local legislation has become necessary in the fight against climate change precisely because of the failure to pass national and international laws. This failure produces the sort of regulatory patchwork many large businesses say they hope to avoid in their operations across multiple districts. Of course, many of those same large corporations have also lobbied against any action whatsoever.

So while I applaud the first-movers in Maryland, let's hope they also hop the Metro to Washington to put some pressure on Congress to pass a clean energy bill this year so that the Obama administration can negotiate in better faith this winter in Mexico. Meanwhile, China is set to impose a carbon tax on its industries starting in 2012.

[PHOTO CREDIT: Power lines in Dickerson, Md. by Andrew Bossi (CC).]

"Rise of the Rest III" (2010)

Earlier this month, we held at the Carnegie Council the third iteration of our ongoing series on the "rise of the rest" or the emergence of non-Western powers in international affairs. Our March 9, 2010 panel titled "Rise of the Rest III" was a follow up to a similarly themed event we held at Carnegie Council in 2008 and one that I participated in at the Nixon Center in Washington DC in 2007. Here is a summary from the original 2007 panel called "The World Without the West." Here is my summary and my speech from 2007.

Nicholas Gvosdev kicked off the panel this month by reviewing some of the points made at the last two panels.



A point I made in 2007 was that the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries are not similar, nor are they a coherent alliance. But why the BRICs has been working as a group is that these countries are coordinating their actions and using theirs relationships as force multipliers, Gvosdev said. It allows the members to credibly speak for half the planet. Gvosdev pointed to embryonic groupings that can go around the United States if U.S. leadership is unsatisfactory.



The southern democracies, like Brazil and India, act as "independents" in international affairs. They will work with the United States when they see it in their interest and will work with other southern democracies, for example through the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) Dialogue Forum when they don't. IBSA is coordinating on trade issues but is also making forays into military joint activities as well, Gvosdev said.



Craig Charney started by making the point that there is an international consensus among peoples that they want some sort of elected and accountable political leadership. "Democracy" broadly means "free expression" worldwide, and people want to choose their own leaders, according to Charney's extensive polling. It is "minimalist" support for democracy and not very deep. It is not a demand for "free and fair elections," but the desire to choose own's leader is a "very powerful trend at present," Charney said.



Charney also identified "connectedness," along with collective responsibility and national power, as another powerful trend and reality in international affairs today. "We are seeing the emergence of imagined communities," which is reinforcing national sentiment through electronic media, Charney said. He noted that 70 percent of humanity now lives in a family with a telephone, creating billions of communications possibilities and accelerating collective consciousness, collective action, and social movements.

As for China, Charney made a fascinating point that seems to resonate with my own research in Asia: Worldwide people admire China for its economic growth, but the admiration for the United States goes much deeper to include America's legal system, its movies, its popular culture, its educational system, its openness, etc. Recently, I have tried to make a somewhat playful point to some of my friends that until China creates modern equivalents to rock 'n' roll and Hollywood, I will be unconcerned about Chinese influence. Give me a Chinese Michael Jackson and "Avatar," I will be worried about a decline in U.S. influence.



Parag Khanna identified a widespread crisis of global governance--in power, norms, and institutions. The emerging powers or "the rest" do not yet have the appropriate voice in global goverance commensurate with their political and economic weight. In power relations, for example, there is no credible proposal on the table to expand the UN Security Council or reform the board of the IMF. For norms, the rules, for example over democracy or intellectual property or humanitarian intervention, are in question. As for institutions, the proposals have been unimaginative. "Meta global governance" has been uninspired, Khanna said.



"What is global governance?" Khanna asked. It is the sum of: multilateral bodies (like the UN), regional mechanisms (like the African Union), inter-regional functional activities (like bilateral climate change cooperation), and the huge array of public-private partnerships (like the activities of the Gates Foundation), Khanna answered. Global governance therefore has no center, Khanna said. So to capture the totality of globalization, "you have to think of global governance as radically decentralized," he said.



Stephen Young asserted that the epistemology of modern civilization is fundamentally nihilistic, and therefore there are no norms or values, only power. But power fragments unless you have a dominant power. So the world is guided by Hobbesian dynamics--"kill or be killed, eat or be eaten," Young said. You therefore need to find norms and values common to many traditions. He rejected the idea that America actually ever had hegemony in the international system but underscored the importance of the "rise of the rest" in a world that is fundamentally about power.

Nevertheless, the central and continuing importance of "the West" in international affairs actually makes "the rise of the rest" the "second rise of the West," Young said. He also asked whether what we might see if a "convergence of societies," as I have argued elsewhere, for example in relation to Google's exit from China. Young concluded that greed has been a perennial problem in the global economy and we have not much evolved since the Dutch tulip bubble of the 1600s. Young's group, the Caux Round Table, sees the need to promote corporate responsibility, use core (universal) values in corporate governance, and to find the right pricing in the economy even if it takes state intervention.



I asked the panel what I asked Harry Harding in 2008: In this new world of emerging powers is cooperation possible? (Harding's response is above.) This time, each panelist had slightly differing views. Young said cooperation is possible but it will be case specific and we therefore need to engage by acknowledging the identities of potential partners. Gvosdev said cooperation will require a real give-and-take, especially between the United States and China. We have to honestly ask ourselves, what kind of world do we want, said Gvosdev. The United States asks for more burden sharing from China but when China becomes more assertive Americans get suspicious. Like Young and many in the Obama administration, Charney said cooperation will depend on establishing a dialogue on shared interests. Khanna finished by saying we will see a world that is "to each his own. You will see more and more of what Charles Kupchan of Georgetown calls the autonomy rule—engaging with other countries in such a way that one can't push too far beyond the extent to which one is really respecting their own autonomy and self-directed evolution. I think we'll see more of that."

To view the transcript and the video in its entirety of the event, click here. A special thanks to our corporate sponsors Booz, HP, and Merck for making this event possible. We look forward to the next iteration of this ongoing series. Like any successful Hollywood movie, another sequel is expected--"Rise of the Rest IV," perhaps next time in 3D.

With China Rising, Moral Gaps Abound

Few people should have a regular column. I am not naming any names. But Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria is one of the handful of people who are smart, insightful, and original enough to deserve one. For instance, Zakaria rightly pinpointed "what is really at stake" in the recent Google vs. China episode. As we have argued here and Harry Harding has argued in Policy Innovations, it is about shaping global norms, or ethics. As he put in his Newsweek column, here is how Zakaria put it in CNN Opinion:

So far China has been remarkably successful at maintaining a system that has embraced markets, but also maintained a very controlled political system. My own view is that that cannot last forever, but that China is still in the early stages of modernization, and it is quite possible that it will be able to continue doing this for several decades. But I think it's very difficult to imagine China being a truly innovative country at the cutting edge of the information age, of global economics, if it has all these constraints on information, all this political control on human-to-human contact, which is what the next wave of the information age is all about. Ultimately the question is: Can China be a world leader that is admired, imitated and that shapes the global system and global values? There I have my doubts that an insular, inward-looking China that maintains tight political control over information and human contact will end up being the country that becomes the model for the world.

This is precisely what I heard last month during my month-long Asia trip, which took me to Singapore, Tokyo, Yokohama, Shanghai, and Nanjing. China's lack of openness broadly speaking is having a negative impact on its development. Specifically, the lack of free press and free expression is inhibiting the country's ability to tackle corruption and spur innovation. These ethical matters are not optional for civilizational advancement; they are essential for China to make the next leap, to be seen truly as a model, to emanate ideas, culture, brands, and enterprises that the world will seek.

In the coming years, assuming China's economy remains stable, the big picture question will be: How will China influence global norms?

As this expansive New York Times article put it, cataloging a decade's worth of China issues:

When the United States was snapping at the heels of the British empire, the global hegemon of the early 20th century, the situation caused plenty of friction, even though both countries spoke the same language, shared similar cultures and were liberal democracies. China, in contrast, is a Confucian- Communist-capitalist hybrid under the umbrella of a one-party state that has so far resisted giving greater political freedom to a growing middle class. Now its ascendancy is about to set off what many officials and experts see as a backlash on both sides of the Pacific.

My guess is that China's influence on the world will result in a convergence of norms. More equality among nations at the global level and eventually more equality among people at home in non-free countries like China. The Google episode in China seems to prove my point: Companies like Google and countries will seek compromise. As relative power equalizes between companies and countries, it will be a process of real negotiation. The alternative is conflict or even disaster.

During my visit to China last month, I presented to a Chinese university several of the ethical gaps I see emerging between China, the United States, poor countries, and the rest of the world in the climate change arena. These gaps, in my mind, will make the climate change mitigation and adaption process difficult.

- The countries least responsible for climate change are the most vulnerable to its effects

- Emerging economies, such as China and India, no longer represent the interests of the poorest and most vulnerable, which seek immediate solutions, and are using the poor as a shield

- The pace of the international political process of negotiation in Copenhagen (and in Mexico City this November) does not match the scientific urgency of climate change

- Most of the countries that will most need to adapt to climate change do not have the political or budgetary capacity to place adaptation in their spending priorities

- Similarly, the security implications of flooding, droughts, and cyclones are not being considered by the countries most vulnerable to extremism and militants who could take advantage of disasters

- The right to "dirty" development and poverty relief is in opposition to the devastating consequences of climate change

- Exiting the dirty development path through clean tech can run up against the protection of intellectual property rights on technology

- The benefits accrued to previous generations by polluting contrast with the current conditions in poor countries

- Nuclear energy promulgation bumps up against the security interests of nuclear nonproliferation

- Central government goals of emissions reductions can oppose the goals of local governments, which are concerned about job creation or are plagued by local corruption and vested interests

- A global ethic on climate change therefore is needed since "finger pointing" will likely derail climate change negotiations yet "naming and shaming" is expected to be the likely enforcement mechanism

As scholar Samuel Fankhauser described in his Dec. 7, 2009 article "If it warms up, who's going to pay?" it may be better to consider adaptation support as "a way to show solidarity, to fairly deal with a shared challenge. The strong should help out the weak."

Photo by vasilken.