The sheer genius of Fox News posturing as a victim of liberal bias in the mainstream media is highlighted here by Jon Stewart. Just another great example of the power of rhetoric!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Jon Stewart Analyzes Fox News' "Fair & Balanced" Rhetorical Strategies
The sheer genius of Fox News posturing as a victim of liberal bias in the mainstream media is highlighted here by Jon Stewart. Just another great example of the power of rhetoric!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Jared Diamond on Climate Change
Climate Progress has posted a new video by Jared Diamond, author of Collapse, on the need to plan strategically to deal with climate change. Here's what Nick Sundt of Climate Progress tells us:
DIAMOND: There are so many societies in which the elite made decisions that were good for themselves in the short run and ruined themselves and societies in the long run….
Similarly, in the United States at present, the policies being pursued by too many wealthy people and decision makers are ones that — as in the case of the Mayan kings — preserve their interests in the short run but are disastrous in the long run.
Jared Diamond, author of the bestseller “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” has a fascinating video discussion of climate change. Below is the video and a blog post on it by WWF’s Nick Sundt.
In a new video, Jared Diamond talks about climate change, drawing parallels between modern Americans and the Classic southern lowland Maya – who failed to take the actions that might have avoided the collapse of their civilization. However, unlike the Maya, we have the “unique opportunity” and capacity to “learn from remote places and to learn from places remote in time,” Diamond says. “And among all the things that might incline me towards pessimism, that is the biggest thing that in the end inclines me towards optimism.”
Diamond explains that energy and greenhouse gas emissions are among a dozen key groups of environmental problems that confront us and “we’ve got to solve them all.” In the case of climate change, he explains that we must not only slow its pace by reducing emissions, but we must prepare for its impacts and adapt. To some extent, we now are “stuck with it”:
“We have to do things to adapt to climate change such as – in California – planting olive trees rather than almond trees. Then there are things to do for wild plants and animals. What do we do about some chipmunk species living on top of a mountain in the Western United States that thrives on cold temperatures, and the mountain is getting warmer and warmer? So this cold habitat is gradually moving up towards the top of the mountain, and the cold habitat is gradually moving off into the sky where there aren’t any chipmunks. What do we do about all those plant and animal species that are threatened by climate change? …It’s going to require having some either new conservation areas; or species that are now being conserved in Yellowstone National Park will increasingly be getting conserved in Glacier National Park further to the North. In some cases it’s going to require actual transplanting that chipmunk on the top of a mountain rising out of the Great Basin. That chipmunk is going to have to be moved somewhere because that mountain is not going to be suitable for the chipmunk. “
In the interview, Diamond draws lessons from the Mayan experience:
“There are so many societies in which the elite made decisions that were good for themselves in the short run and ruined themselves and societies in the long run. For example, the most advanced society in the New World before Columbus was the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala and Honduras. They ended up collapsing …. because of a combination of climate change, drought, water management problems, soil erosion, deforestation….So the Mayan kings had strong power.
Why didn’t the Mayan kings just look out the windows of the Palaces and see the forests getting chopped down, soil being eroded down at the valley bottom. Why didn’t the kings say `stop it’? Well the kings had managed to insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions – in the short run. Even while the forests were being chopped down, they were still being fed well by the commoners, they were in their wonderful palaces. And the kings didn’t recognize that they were making a mess until it was too late, when the commoners rose in revolt.
Similarly, in the United States at present, the policies being pursued by too many wealthy people and decision makers are ones that — as in the case of the Mayan kings — preserve their interests in the short run but are disastrous in the long run.”
Will we go the way of the Maya? Diamond is hopeful that we will choose otherwise:
“Today, we have archeologists who tell us about the mistakes that the Maya and the Greenland Norse and the Anasazi made, and we also have archeologists who tell us about the good decisions that the Tokugawa Japanese and the Icelanders made. So we can learn from the past. And then we can turn on our television sets. We can see what it’s like in Somalia. We can also see what it’s like today in Norway or Bhutan. And we can decide: Do we like the lifestyle of Bhutan or do we like the lifestyle in Somalia? Which do we choose to emulate? We have this opportunity to learn from remote places and to learn from places remote in time. No other society in world history has had that advantage. And among all the things that might incline me towards pessimism, that is the biggest thing that in the end run inclines me towards optimism. We have this unique opportunity.”
In an earlier video (November 2009), Diamond framed the climate change threat in another compelling way, not by referring to earlier civilizations but by focusing on more immediate, personal concerns and priorities:
“We are working so hard for our children and grandchildren. All of us parents send our kids to school; we debate endlessly about whether our kids are in the right school. We draw up our wills, and maybe we draw up trusts. We buy life insurance. It’s all wasted if what we are propelling out kids into is a world not worth living in.”
– Nick Sundt
Online Resources:
Classic Maya Collapse. Wikipedia.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never.
By Bill McKibben,
Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.
It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.
If you did wonder, you see, you would also have to wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest — resulting in record flooding along the Mississippi — could somehow be related. And then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.
It’s far smarter to repeat to yourself the comforting mantra that no single weather event can ever be directly tied to climate change. There have been tornadoes before, and floods — that’s the important thing. Just be careful to make sure you don’t let yourself wonder why all these record-breaking events are happening in such proximity — that is, why there have been unprecedented megafloods in Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan in the past year. Why it’s just now that the Arctic has melted for the first time in thousands of years. No, better to focus on the immediate casualties, watch the videotape from the store cameras as the shelves are blown over. Look at the news anchorman standing in his waders in the rising river as the water approaches his chest.
Because if you asked yourself what it meant that the Amazon has just come through its second hundred-year drought in the past five years, or that the pine forests across the western part of this continent have been obliterated by a beetle in the past decade — well, you might have to ask other questions. Such as: Should President Obama really just have opened a huge swath of Wyoming to new coal mining? Should Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sign a permit this summer allowing a huge new pipeline to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta? You might also have to ask yourself: Do we have a bigger problem than $4-a-gallon gasoline?
Better to join with the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 240 to 184 this spring to defeat a resolution saying simply that “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.” Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether. Just don’t start asking yourself whether there might be some relation among last year’s failed grain harvest from the Russian heat wave, and Queensland’s failed grain harvest from its record flood, and France’s and Germany’s current drought-related crop failures, and the death of the winter wheat crop in Texas, and the inability of Midwestern farmers to get corn planted in their sodden fields. Surely the record food prices are just freak outliers, not signs of anything systemic.
It’s very important to stay calm. If you got upset about any of this, you might forget how important it is not to disrupt the record profits of our fossil fuel companies. If worst ever did come to worst, it’s reassuring to remember what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told the Environmental Protection Agency in a recent filing: that there’s no need to worry because “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations.” I’m pretty sure that’s what residents are telling themselves in Joplin today.
Bill McKibben is founder of the global climate campaign 350.org and a distinguished scholar at Middlebury College in Vermont.
Living Routes--Study Abroad in Ecovillages
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst puts it this way:
Bring your education to life by studying in communities across the globe that are striving to live more equitable, just and sustainable lifestyles. These communities are ideal campuses to learn about and experience personal and community-based solutions to real world issues, which include:
Sustainable development
Environmental studies & research
Appropriate technologies
Consensus decision making
Peace and social justice
Worldviews and consciousness
Permaculture & ecological design
Organic agriculture
Fair trade
Local economies
Green building
Habitat restoration
Women's empowerment
Bioregional studies
Through rich, academic, interdisciplinary coursework, service learning, cultural studies and community immersions, Living Routes programs support you in developing the understanding, skills, and experience necessary to help restore your life, community and the planet to greater health and resiliency while preparing for a career that makes a difference."
For more information on ecovillages and the experiences others have had there, just go to Living Routes at http://livingroutes.org
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Who's a Climate Scientist? I'm a Climate Scientist!
Australian climate scientists, tired of opinions on climate change generated by people who are clearly NOT climate scientists, decided to take their message to the people. Here's their rap on what climate scientists with an edge might say. Below are the words to the rap:
In the media landscape there are climate CHANGE deniers and BELIEVERS, but rarely those speaking about climate change are actual climate scientists.
yo....we're climate scientists.. and there's no denying this Climate Change Is REEEEALL..
Who's a climate scientist..
I'm a climate scientist..
Not a cleo finalist
No a climate scientist
Droppin facts all over this wax
While bidness be crying about a carbon tax
Climate change is caused by people
Earth Unlike Alien Has no sequel
We gotta move fast or we'll be forsaken,
Cause we were too busy suckin things Copenhagen: (Politician)
I said Burn! it's hot in here..
32% more carbon in the atmosphere.
Oh Eee Ohh Eee oh wee ice ice ice
Raisin' sea levels twice by twice
We're scientists, what we speak is True.
Unlike Andrew Bolt our work is Peer Reviewed... ooohhh
Who's a climate scientist..
I'm a climate scientist..
An Anglican revivalist
No a climate scientist
Feedback is like climate change on crack
The permafrosts subtracts: feedback
Methane release wack : feedback..
Write a letter then burn it: feedback
Denialists deny this in your dreams
Coz climate change means greater extremes,
Heat won't be the norm
Heatwaves bigger badder storms
The Green house effect is just a theory sucker (Alan Jones)
Yeah so is gravity float away muther floater
Who's a climate scientist..
I'm a climate scientist..
I'm not a climate Scientist
Who's Climate Scientists
A Penny Farthing Cyclist
No
A Fox News Journalist?
No
A Paleontologist?
No
A Clean Coal Lobbyist?
No
A Cashed up Alarmist?
No! a climate scientist! Yo! Preach!
Written and performed by Climate Scientists, Dan Ilic, Duncan Elms and production by Brendan Woithe at Colony NoFi.