“…Wrapped in a flag, and carrying a cross.”

Just saw this from Michael Stone over at Patheos.

Dangerous Catholic extremist: Amy Coney Barrett, a leading candidate for a soon-to-be-vacant Supreme Court seat, claims the Bible precedes the Constitution.

Barrett, a dangerous religious extremist who believes her religious faith comes before the law, and claims that the Bible precedes the U.S. Constitution, was confirmed for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit last year after a controversial and contentious Senate confirmation process. [Read more…]

Discerning intent from action: Scott Pruitt and the Republican vision of America’s future

Scott Pruitt seems to be a trial run of whether or not the GOP can get away with the kind of corrupt behavior that is now standard operating procedure in the Russian oligarchy. Since he got into office, his actions have confirmed his intentions- Pruitt is there to turn the EPA into a cash and favors spigot for the wealthy, using taxpayer resources to undo environmental protections, do favors, and enrich himself. My only regret, from this video, is that Pruitt and his dining partner were apparently left to finish their meal in peace after this excessively polite interruption (EDIT: my bad for not looking deeper – he left of his own accord as she returned to her seat.):

We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment. Someone who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all of us, including our children. So, I would urge you to resign before your scandals push you out.

Good for her! Seriously – these people are taking actions that will kill billions if they are not stopped. They deserve no peace. Unfortunately, disrupting their ability to enjoy public spaces is not going to be enough. [Read more…]

Sun Day: A good refresher on how the sun relates to the current global warming

In the spirit of having a basic understanding of climate science, I like to periodically re-visit good articles and videos on the subject. Peter Sinclair has been a pretty consistent source of well-crafted, well-explained videos. This one gives a solid overview of both the misinformation, and the actual info on how the sun has been interacting with our climate over the past few decades. I couldn’t find a transcript, but the auto-generated captions are actually on point for this one:

 

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Mercury in Permafrost: The waking giant has poisonous breath

The anti-vaccination crowd has a tradition of freaking out over Thiomersol, a mercury compound, being in vaccines. It’s another example of how well-crafted misinformation capitalizes on a partial truth combined with general ignorance. What has been interesting to note is that the same people don’t put nearly as much effort into reducing mercury emissions from coal-fire power plants, even though that’s a mercury compound known to be dangerous, and we’re all exposed to far greater amounts of mercury from those emissions than from vaccines.

Well, here’s an opportunity for them to show a renewed commitment to their fight against mercury exposure: [Read more…]

Preparing for the future

The suite of problems facing American politics is starting to remind me of climate change. A few bad actors with vast resources have screwed everybody over with the silent consent of a majority of the country. To be sure, it’s not like we had managed to unscrew the country the way most of White America seemed to think, but we have been moving slowly in that direction, and had a glimpse of what it might be like to live up to our high-minded ideals. The 21st century could have been a monument to human rights and human ingenuity. At the moment, I don’t think that’s a possibility anymore.

It seems likely, with Trump on the verge of appointing another “Justice” to the supreme court, that we’re over the edge. Just as we have no realistic chance of avoiding catastrophic warming based on where we’re at right now, we may not have any realistic chance at preventing an American slide into full-on authoritarianism.

I suppose November will show us just how screwed we are, but in the meantime I think it’s time to really delve into how to keep working for justice under an oligarchy or something like that. [Read more…]

Water is life: American capitalism is a violation of human rights.

The picture shows a black and white illustration. To the left, a skeletal, starving child holds a hand out under a tap for water, while a man in a business suit pinches off the hose that would allow the child to drink. The word

Since American capitalism seems to be all about finding new ways to punish the poor for being poor, here’s some shit icing on the garbage cake – Nestle is paying $200 per year to pump enough water to supply 100,000 people into bottles to be sold. All of this is about two hours drive from Flint, MI.

If you found this post useful or enjoyable, please share it, and please consider becoming a patron over at my Patreon page. Your donations make this blog possible, and even as little as one dollar per month adds up to make a difference. If you feel you can afford more than that, you can get access to all sorts of other content and perks! Your patronage allows me to put more of my time and energy into making this blog a useful resource. Thanks for reading!

 

Termites in the Support Beams: Ecosystem services and biodiversity loss

The chaos of the Trump administration has given us some insight to what it will be like to deal with the escalating crises of climate change. There is so much going on that a lot is getting lost in the desperate attempts of our media to report on everything. It seems to be an effective way to confuse public opinion, and could well be the soundtrack for the downfall of our attempt at something like a liberal democracy.

Likewise, as the planet warms, more and more attention will rightly be paid to big events – storms that push the rising seas farther inland than ever before, or killer heat waves, or the troubles of climate refugees, or the wars sparked by climate-driven desperation. As all of that is happening, however, there will be other problems with more subtle effects. We are surrounded by plants and animals most people never think about, and some of them play important roles in our lives without any direct interaction. [Read more…]

Hansen Was Right: Checking up on past predictions

One of the most persistent lines of misinformation about climate science has to do with how long the field has existed. In the interest of repeating accurate information and NOT repeating lies, the clearest”father” of climate science is Joseph Fourier, mostly for his work in the 1820s.

The chief rebuttal to this particular line of propaganda is simple and compelling. The theory of man-made global warming is, and always has been a predictive hypothesis based on hard data. Our understanding of the physics driving global warming predates the idea that our own activities could increase the planet’s temperature by 40 years or so (Tyndall’s work in the 1860s), and the idea that our activities could increase the temperature predates the detectable rise in temperature by around 90 years.

[Read more…]