Voices from the Flats – Ship Bright
9 12 2009
Ship Bright started his Fresh[water] ideas for a thirsty planet blog this past July and now has readers in over 113 countries and growing. Inspired and tutored by “Mudflats” herself, Fresh[water] ideas for a thirsty planet is devoted to educating and inspiring people from all walks of life around the world to understand the freshwater issues we face as a global community, and to take action locally. His posts can be found at: http://shipbright.wordpress.com
Ship Bright is a conservation entrepreneur whose experience in the private, public, and nonprofit/non-governmental organization [NGO] sectors gives him a unique perspective on economic and environmental issues. A graduate of Bates College, Ship has earned an MBA from University of Southern New Hampshire as well as an MPA from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He worked for two Governors’ as Deputy Commissioner for the Maine Department of Conservation running the legislative program and then founded the Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute [MLCI]. His work at MLCI was highlighted by his involvement with invasive aquatic species and earned him an appointment to the Federal Invasive Species Advisory Committee which he chaired for almost two years. Most recently Ship was in Alaska working to protect the freshwater resources of Bristol Bay. He is the Principal of BrightNGOsolutions offering consulting services to Philanthropists as well as NGO organizations on board development, mission focus, strategic planning, and fundraising.
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Sarah Palin and Climate Change
Dealing with critics and skeptics of climate change can be a challenge since most of the skeptics and critics either cherry-pick their data, have the facts fit their theory, or they border on or are delusional. Just yesterday The New York Times ran an article that the World Meteorological Organization said global warming has shown NO signs of ending. In fact, it is shaping up to be the warmest decade in the 150 years that records have been kept. Critics and skeptics had been cherry picking some short-term earlier data as proof the earth is getting colder! >>>Annoying buzzer noise<<< FAIL! Thank you for playing-next contestant please…
I am interested in debating the facts with people of good will, caring hearts, and intelligence, but I must admit that my human frailty is exposed in dealing with “The Whack Jobs”…and by this I mean people like Glenn Beck, who I honestly believe has just lost it, and then there is Mudflats’ and Shannyn Moore’s “Fav” Alaskan politician - Sarah Palin.
I spent last fall, winter and spring in Alaska, arriving just before she was picked as John McCain’s running mate and I left as she quit the Governorship. There are a couple things one needs to know about Alaska: 1.) it is a HUGE state and; 2.) socially it is a TINY village. With a population of around 650,000 in a state twice the size of Texas [or 18 times the size of my home State of Maine] everyone knows everyone and there are NO SECRETS. They all come out eventually. Even people who live there all their lives forget that [...and you know who you are...]
I was raised a Republican and was active in the party for many years. Teddy Roosevelt was my hero along with Abe Lincoln. They are still my heroes, but I have become an Independent – so pigeon-hole my politics, and dismiss me as you wish. Sarah Palin is a mile wide and a half-inch deep. She is physically attractive, she is sociable, has a lovely smile, a great figure, looks great in her Naughty Monkey high heels [I learned about women's shoes in Alaska - of all places - because of her], connects with the common “Man” and has the intellectual rigor of arctic lichen.
When I was in Alaska, she used public power to conduct a private vendetta against her former brother-in-law. She weighed in on a ballot initiative to defeat a clean water referendum, she nominated an Attorney General nominee who at a men’s group meeting was heard to say, “if you can’t rape your wife, who can you rape?” [he wasn't confirmed-that was a first] and the stories go on and on. When I would travel back east and the presidential election was in full swing, I was always asked about Sarah Palin. My words of advice to my “Republican” friends then, as it is now – “keep your powder dry” about Sarah Palin, and listen deeply to what she has to say.
I worked for two Governors here in Maine – one a Republican, and one an Independent. Here is what a good leader and Governor does: A good Governor listens to the advice of the people that he or she has chosen to surround him or herself with, Legislators, and the people, and then makes up their own mind. A good Governor takes full responsibility for his or her decisions and actions and doesn’t throw the people that he or she has surrounded him or herself with under the bus when mistakes are made. And lastly, a good Governor doesn’t look people in the eye and feed them an entire “Bovine Scatology” story–specifically, Sarah Palin did not resign because she was going to be a “Lame Duck”. She was in the third year of her FIRST, of possibly two, four-year terms as Governor. Unless one has announced they are not going to run for a second term and thereby diminishes their political clout and capital, a Governor is not a Lame Duck. If she was term limited out, yes. She wasn’t. Anyway, what Governor just QUITS? Potentially one heart beat away from being President, and she has a penchant for quitting when something shiny catches her eye.
She left office to go make big money because she got a huge boost of popularity from the presidential campaign and she wanted to strike while the iron was hot. I am not impressed with her leadership or intellectual skills, especially as it has to do with public, democratic, and transparent leadership. When it comes to complex multi-national global issues?… fuhgetaboutit! [tip o' the hat to Mudflats' roots]
Climate change and Sarah Palin: On Sarah Palin’s Facebook page posted last Thursday, she wrote that she wants President Obama to follow her example and “Quit” Copenhagen. Don’t go. She thinks that the world’s leading Climatologists who serve on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] are “snake oil” scientists. She claims that “dogmatic environmentalists” and “an environmental priesthood” are behind all the climatic science. She says, “Saying no to Copenhagen and cap and tax are first steps in “restoring science to its rightful place.” This from a former Governor who ignored science in her own state and instead cherry picks her facts on these issues such as protecting the world’s largest wild sockeye salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, and opposing the listing of the Polar Bear as an endangered species. See this latest report on the ESA listing from US News and World Report on moves by Sarah Palin’s handpicked successor and bearer of the torch:
My ultimate problem with people like Sarah Palin is that they are the Pied Pipers of populist denial. She plays to the lowest common denominator in our society, cloaks herself in the flag to deflect legitimate criticism, and uses religious passion to pander to the masses about a complex subject that is really way above her head. She is leading a group of people who are thirsty for understanding these issues to “drink the Kool-Aid” and go down with her.
I can be dismissed as some sort of environmentalist (with a pejorative adjective or adverb in front of it), so don’t believe a word I say about climate change.
Instead I offer up again, what I had previously posted in October, words from the huge multi-national financial services company Allianz – certainly not a group of “Dogmatic Environmentalists” nor members of the “Environmental Priesthood”. These guys are as straight-laced, conservative, and hard-nosed business people as any you’ll find, even in Alaska.
http://shipbright.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/climate-change-epilogue-making-sense-of-it-all/
Taking on Climate Change Myths and Skeptics: Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Lead Author of the 4th IPCC Report is one of the world’s best known climate scientists and one of the most outspoken critics of climate change skeptics. Here he tackles the most common and pervasive climate change myths promoted by climate change deniers.
“I must say that from some quarters, the reaction against the idea of human-caused warming is very emotional, resulting in wild conspiracy theories and ad-hominem attacks against climate scientists.”
The scientific facts seem clear, climate change is happening and it is man-made. Still some people disagree. Why?
“In my experience, these people primarily do not like the consequences of the scientific findings: that we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.”
Are there any scientists left that deny that climate change is happening or man-made?
“Scientists yes, but they are almost never climate scientists. A very interesting survey of earth scientists by the University of Illinois recently found that 97 percent of those who publish original research in climate science agree that humans have caused significant global warming. But the more you move away from climate science, going for example to meteorologists (who study weather rather than climate) or geologists, the more people are still skeptical.”
There are different degrees of denial and skepticism. Which is the most common and which is the most dangerous?
“One must make a distinction: many scientists from neighboring fields are skeptical in the sense that they are not sure, since they are not very familiar with the evidence. In fact, most climate scientists, including myself, were skeptical in this sense perhaps 15 or 20 years ago, and were gradually convinced by the overwhelming evidence. That’s healthy skepticism.
Quite something else are those individuals that actively go out to deny human-caused global warming in the media. This activity usually has a political background, and the arguments they present are generally aimed at uninformed lay people who are not familiar with the data. To knowledgeable people they are thoroughly unconvincing, often deceitful.”
What are the most common positions taken by climate change deniers?
“We distinguish three main types. First, the “trend skeptics” who deny that there is any climate change. Second, the “attribution skeptics”, who accept that there is global warming but deny that humans cause it. Third, the “impact skeptics” who accept there is human-caused global warming but claim it is harmless.
Amongst the trend skeptics, the most popular argument last year was that there was no global warming over the past ten years. That happened to be the case because the last ten years then started with 1998, which was an exceptionally warm year due to an El Niño event (a natural climate oscillation in the tropical Pacific) in that year.
This argument is less popular this year, since the past ten years are now 1999 to 2008, and that period shows a strong warming trend simply because 1999 happened to be a relatively cold year.
For good reason, the shortest time span for which the IPCC report gives a trend is 25 years – in that way you don’t mix-up climate trends with short-term natural fluctuations. It is a standard, unscientific skeptic-argument to confuse people about the trend by pointing to short-term variations. This faulty argument is also made about the sea level trend.
The most popular “attribution skeptic” argument is that solar variations have caused global warming. That is clearly wrong since most of the global warming happened since the late 1970s, yet solar activity has gone down over this period. In fact, in the past two years solar output has been the weakest since the beginning of the satellite-based measurements that started in the 1970s. Hence, global warming has occurred despite the sun getting a little fainter, not because it got brighter.”
How do people react when you challenge their beliefs?
“All we can do as scientists is to explain the scientific evidence soberly to the public. From some quarters, the reaction against the idea of human-caused warming is very emotional, resulting in wild conspiracy theories and personal attacks against climate scientists.
In fact, the very weakness of the skeptics’ arguments is a very good indication of how strong the evidence for human-caused warming is. If there were any valid counter-arguments, I am sure these people would have found them.”You have been very vocal in the debate with climate skeptics. What is your motivation?
“The reason is simple. I get a lot of queries from the public and the policy world about specific skeptics’ claims. And the doubts promoted by skeptics have a disproportionate influence on climate policy, delaying the required measures. This was especially clear for U.S. government policy during the Bush-era, but it is also true elsewhere.
These delays have meant that we are now running out of time. We need to turn the tide of rising emissions within the next ten years, and we need to reduce emissions globally at a very stiff rate until 2050: at about 2 percent a year if we start now, but already at about 6 percent a year if we wait another ten years.
After that, it becomes almost impossible to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, the stated goal of over 100 countries. Had we started acting right after the Rio environment summit of 1992, when the Framework Convention on Climate Change was passed, we could have solved the problem at a leisurely pace of about a half percent reduction each year.”What can be done about the large majority that is aware of climate change, but not acting accordingly?
“People need to be better educated not just about what the problem is, but more importantly about what the solutions are, so they feel empowered to act. Many people are not well aware of where the biggest potential for emissions reductions is in their own household and lifestyle.
Take the case of a Hollywood celebrity turning back her car on the way to the airport, because she forgot to unplug her mobile phone charger. The extra car miles of course swamped those emissions from the idle charger, and don’t even mention the plane trip.There is huge potential for savings by insulating your house and by using only the most efficient appliances on the market. And in terms of lifestyle, cutting down on air and car travel will be the biggest contribution many people can make.
Apart from these personal actions, many people are not well aware of the political solutions: for example that we could build an energy supply system over the next decades based primarily on renewable resources. We can still contain the climate crisis, but we need to act decisively now. It is a race against time. As U.S. president Obama has rightly put it: “Delay is no longer an option.”
Send Allianz a Thank You for taking a stand on climate change and tell them I [shipbright.wordpress.com] sent you! Just Click HERE.
United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Copenhagen, Denmark 7 – 18 December, 2009.
Conference of the Parties [COP] 15
Empower and add your voice to those from around the world.
December 9th, 2009 at 7:34 PM
Thank you for posting on Mudflats – Very articulate & passionate !
We, as the human race, need to solve this issue. This is a world crisis, not America, China, Russia or Mexico, altho those countries that are heavily industrialized contribute more to the problem.
Today, altho a bit late in the winter season, I put up my window quilts on the Northern faced windows.
Open Question(s) to anyone… MsQuitter makes a big deal out of appointing a sub-sub committee on Global Warming in AK? Did they ever meet? Did they post or publish any results of their meetings, if they did in fact meet? Just curious, seems she appointed a lot of ppl that didn’t seem to do anything.
December 9th, 2009 at 7:45 PM
Very informative article and thank you for posting links. Your “questions and answers” gave some nice reminders that there are people who question, but since they are usually not real bright people, we-with-brains usually forget what specifically they are questioning. I needed a refresher in this category as Christmas is coming and I have some kin that bend that way.
I will be checking out your blog as well.
As for style, I enjoyed your injection of a tad bit of snark. Just a touch, but enough to show your mudpuppiness!
And that is what I like about all of you- smart AND funny.
Kudos!
December 9th, 2009 at 7:53 PM
Okay, true confessions — I need to go back and read your splendid prose, AKM, as I’ve not read it yet.
But I just wanted to acknowledge my mean-girlness and post a special thank you to Flyinyureye for the little muffin tops adorning the top of Herself’s cheerleader skirt.
It made my mean-spirited day.
LOL
December 9th, 2009 at 7:56 PM
This is a little OT, but I just want to give a shout out to all you Alaskans who comment here. It is currently about 28F here in the California desert, and I’m freezing my tush off after going out to feed the ponies. I know that 28F sounds warm to all of you. You be da gangstas!!!!! I am officially a sissypants.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:03 PM
Thank you for the very informative article. I will definitely be visiting your blog. Keep up the great writing!
December 9th, 2009 at 8:37 PM
Ship Bright, thank you for this essay. I especially found the Q and A with Stefan Rahmstorf informative. It’s very interesting to know he is part of a very conservative group. Who knew? What would Scientist Sarah say about that???
I also enjoyed your background discussion. That touch of snark was received with a smile.
This was very informative and worthy of passing on to some of my friends who are not “on the same page” on this issue. Best of luck in your endeavors and thanks for the links.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:43 PM
Well said.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:00 PM
Love the art, flyinureye. Ship Bright, Very informative article. Important stuff. I wish those that needed to hear this would read it. We’ll keep after them. It is good to have this ammo. Thanks again.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:04 PM
I gotta ask: Where exactly IS “science’s rightful place,” according to She Who Must Not Be Named (And Who Disagrees With Evolution)? Jeez.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:22 PM
Seriously off topic, but the Queen of the North is signing books at Elmendorf on Sunday 1-3 p.m. at the base post exchange. I know we should get mad, but we shouldn’t get mad at the commanders, the Alaska military treated President Obama with the utmost respect. If EVERYONE ignored the whole thing like nothing happened it would have more effect. I think Sarah thrives when everyone creates a scene just for her. She would be very disappointed if everyone ignored her.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:34 PM
If you are seriously upset with Sarah, you can throw snowballs at her.
http://www.peta.org/feat/HolidaySnowballFight/index.aspx?c=ptasnwgmeftf
It is somewhat “therapeutic”
December 9th, 2009 at 9:57 PM
“People need to be better educated not just about what the problem is, but more importantly about what the solutions are, so they feel empowered to act. Many people are not well aware of where the biggest potential for emissions reductions is in their own household and lifestyle.”
Comparing this with Paul Krugman’s comments, this seems to be the crux of the billowing hate behind the “arguments” of climate change deniers: they don’t feel empowered, but rather fear being dictated to. So rationality doesn’t really score – it’s a power trip, and the limbic system roars. Hoot and wave branches.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:00 PM
And, y’know, it’s kinda hard to be told you can’t drive an SUV or fly on an airplane so much, when Wall Street parasites are rolling in clover. Let’s start taxing those swine.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:58 PM
Excellent post with interesting links, Ship Bright. Now, please send it to the harebrains at The Washington Post as a kind of palate/brain cleanser after Palin’s Op-Ed tripe.
Great graphics as usual, flyinureye!
December 9th, 2009 at 11:05 PM
AKM,
When you state that Palin “has the intellectual rigor of arctic lichen” I fear that you slander and besmirch the fine intellectual reputation of all arctic lichen. Certainly in in a battle of wits with Palin, I’ll take the lichen every single time, even the less intelligent examples of the species. The lichen are far more likely to construct coherent sentences in which subject and predicate agree.
The global warming compendium is possibly the best debunking of the deniers that I have ever seen. It is a classic and should be required reading for any would be denier – at least for those who are literate.
You state that you are “interested in debating the facts with people of good will, caring hearts, and intelligence.” Then you are clearly not interested in dealing with global warming deniers. It has been my experience that the denier camp is exceedingly top heavy with morons who know less than nothing about science, yet feel free to spew their ignorant pronouncements about why science could not possibly be trusted in regards to global warming.
If the deniers are wrong – and I would bet large sums of money that they are – but their position wins out, we are dead. If the scientists are wrong, but their position wins out, we will not be dead. The deniers are imbecilic goobers who mistake domesticated bananas as “evidence” of divinely created man.* That is their “science” in a nutshell. Why should we listen to these fools regarding any science?
I choose to listen to the most highly educated specialists that have actually conducted research, collected and analyzed (and understand) scientific data, and are generally smart enough to not blindly follow @sshats like Palin and Beck, especially on subjects requiring measurable intellect.
* – Who could forget this shining example of Kurt Cameron’s intellectual rigor.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:10 PM
Ooops. Failed to provide the Kurt Cameron link:
hhttp://tinyurl.com/ygslocs
It is a pity that ignorance does not induce pain in those who wield it.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:10 PM
Mo @ 11 and 12 ~ I think part of it is that people don’t feel empowered to do anything about it, but I’m convinced its more a sheer lack of understanding of what “global warming” is. People have nothing in their own experience/lives to compare it to. Without some sort of ‘real life’ understanding of how man can contribute to the complete disruption of something that is totally natural, they have no concept of what the problem is, how they are ‘contributing’ to the problem, or how they can rectify it. If you don’t understand something, you can’t do anything about it…all you can do is rely on others to tell you what to do. (Which is where SP and her blatherings come into play ~ she fills the void in their knowledge with her whacko pronouncements and big-oil-friendly agenda.) Unless a problem (and its solution) is something to which a person can personally relate, it is meaningless.
What people have to understand is: Global warming is a cyclical event the earth has undergone since time immemorial; climate change—the warming and cooling—is a completely normal part of the earth’s natural sequence of events. I don’t think anyone with a lick of intelligence would disagree that global warming is a naturally occurring event. Hell, even SP understands (I think) the concept and agrees with that.
Another totally naturally occurring event is: hair on a person’s body grows, dies, and is shed. That is a normal part of a human body’s sequence of events – even eyebrow hairs, big toe hairs, and eyelashes grow, die, and fall out. All body hair goes through its cycle; it is natural. There are times, though, when that natural progression is interrupted or completely disrupted because [general] man does something to speed up the process.
Hairs are tweezed, shaved, depilated, electrolyzed, or whatever, so man can enhance their looks and thereby make their personal world a tad better. It’s obvious that in making their world better in this manner, man does alter the natural cycle of their body hair. The hair tries valiantly to keep on doing its thing, but man just keeps on swirling any chance of the hair’s recovery back to its natural cycle down the drain.
Granted, big whoop about what a person does to their own hair – keep it or get rid of it, makes no difference in the grand scheme of things. But the fact is, what otherwise does occur completely naturally—hair growth, death, and shedding—is sped up, skewed, altered, changed, because of the actions of man to enhance their personal little world. The poor old hair doesn’t have a chance to go through its normal, natural cycle ~ man butted-in and made it impossible for the natural cycle to begin, progress, and finish.
Same with global warming—what man has done (and is doing) to the earth is speeding up, skewing, altering, changing what should happen naturally…now poor old earth doesn’t stand a chance to have its cycle of warming and cooling take place as it has from time immemorial. Technically, yes, those who insist man isn’t causing global warming, are correct—but that semantic technicality of “causing” doesn’t alter the fact that what man is doing, is screwing things up. Mightily.
One would think the former governor of our only Arctic State could understand that there is a gigantically huge difference between the pristine earth cycling through climate change and the one we all have (trying) to cycle now – an earth struggling to find its natural cycle now that it’s been ‘fixed’ full of man’s efforts to make it a ‘better’ place for him to do his thing.
It amazes me that SP and global warming nay-sayers keep ignoring that there are consequences to screwing with nature again and again and again and, as if that screwing were part of the natural cycle, expect nature to carry on as it always has. Carry on with no problem.
That natural unibrow that makes Justin look like a twin of Frida Kahlo? Don’t pretend that extensive electrolysis of the hairs on the bridge of his nose doesn’t have anything to do with the unibrow’s losing struggle to maintain its natural place. Want the earth to keep cycling its climate naturally? Don’t pretend that man-made big-time interruption, intrusion, and alteration of nature doesn’t have anything to do with that taken-for-granted occurrence no longer happening exactly as it has naturally done forever, either.
The “la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you; I got historical evidence that this heating and cooling has been going on for eons – proof that man isn’t causing global warming ~ even ‘scientists’ agree with me,” sadly, seems to keep coming from those who should know better. People like SP.
Face it, SP and other global warming nay-sayers, there is global warming and it is accelerated; it i a man-enhanced acceleration and yet you keep ignoring the scientific proof (presented by men and women who spend their entire lives carefully studying such things!) about what is, tragically, happening. Hello- is anyone in there? beth.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:34 PM
As a geoscientist who is “away from climate science, going for example to meteorologists (who study weather rather than climate) or geologists”, I must say that the evidence for global warming in Hawaii is real. Our low tides run from the order of 10 cm (a few inches) below “mean sea level (MSL)” to the order of 20 cm above MSL while high tides run a few 10s of cm around 30-70 cm (1 foot to just over 2 feet) above MSL. MSL was established in the mid 20th century. It is obviously almost a foot below the current mean sea level. This is due almost entirely to thermal expansion of the near-surface waters. And that is caused by global warming, which IS happening.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:36 PM
@AK Muckraker – Thank you so much for this guest post!
@Ship Bright – Your last name does you justice, as you add and forward CLARITY on issues of great importance for our future generations, yet issues requiring intelligent discourse TODAY! Thank you so much!
@Gasman #14 – Point of clarification: It was not AKM, but rather Ship Bright, to who you should attribute the quote.
Following is a good link regarding Polar Bears and Conservation:
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/
December 10th, 2009 at 12:24 AM
Jack in CA,
Mea culpa, mea culpa, maxima mea culpa. Thank you for the correction. I realized my error after posting. I hereby retroactively adjust my quotes from “AKM” to “Ship Bright.”
Props to Ship Bright. You are eloquent and your logic is impeccable. You also get points for having a memorable and exceedingly cool name. I maintain my thanks to AKM for providing the Bright piece. It is still a gem and should be required reading.
December 10th, 2009 at 1:15 AM
Excellent picture… but next time, make Sarah’s upper arms fatter. Ever noticed SP always wears sleeves? I bet she wishes she had Michelle Obama’s arms. Michelle has great arms!
December 10th, 2009 at 3:25 AM
I think they should drop the Global Warming tag, and change it to Global Climate Change. (Global warming my butt! I don’t remember it ever being this cold here.) I have heard this statement many times over by the misinformed. The fact is, global climate change will have many different adverse effects on different parts of the world. This could be in the form of major droughts, torrential flooding rains, increased hurricane activity, etc. People will experience weather in their part of the world, that they never could have imagined. In most of these scenarios, the operative word will be EXTREME.
December 10th, 2009 at 4:34 AM
interesting as an ex-Maina’ living in Berlin to read on MF about sources from Potsdam, not to mention ALLIANZ.
‘God Jul’ to all.
December 10th, 2009 at 6:02 AM
I was surprised a few days ago to find out my sister believes that climate change is normal. That the man made crisis is all hype. She had heard from a scientist friend who claimed it was all overblown.
I’m a scientist too! but she wasn’t interested in my beliefs.
I had assumed that it was a commonly held belief and now with the deniers getting so much publicity I’m disheartened.
December 10th, 2009 at 6:07 AM
Kudos to flyinureye for another brilliant graphic!
Thank you Ship Bright for your wonderful explanation and insight. After reading it, I have a clearer understanding of this very complex issue. I don’t understand what the problem is with the deniers. How can having clean air and clean water be a bad thing regardless of anything else that is happening to our planet?
As a companion piece to this one, I recommend reading this post from the wonderfully intelligent blog, Kyra at the Moment:
http://kyrafrost.blogspot.com/2009/12/sarah-palin-is-really-saying-i-got-mine.html
and this extremely well-written and thoughtful piece by Sarah Jones:
http://www.politicususa.com/en/node/7359
They are both rather lengthy but you won’t regret taking the time to read them. They add a great deal of information to the current debate on climate change and “Climategate” and, as I mentioned, are terrific companion pieces to Ship Bright’s.
December 10th, 2009 at 6:23 AM
“My ultimate problem with people like Sarah Palin is that they are the Pied Pipers of populist denial. She plays to the lowest common denominator in our society, cloaks herself in the flag to deflect legitimate criticism, and uses religious passion to pander to the masses about a complex subject that is really way above her head.”
WOW. This is so good. He hits the nail on the head here.
December 10th, 2009 at 7:53 AM
Mr. Bright – that was an excellent and very informative piece – powerful and moving to say the least. Thank you for your continued devotion in getting the word out for us to be “better educated not just about what the problem is, but more importantly about what the solutions are.”
I hope this article gets the attention it deserves and is passed on to as many media outlets as possible in order for everyone to feel empowered to act because “Delay is no longer an option.”
December 10th, 2009 at 8:56 AM
@ 24 nanceindallas Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 6:02 AM
“I was surprised a few days ago to find out my sister believes that climate change is normal. That the man made crisis is all hype. She had heard from a scientist friend who claimed it was all overblown.”
“““““““`
…and therein lies the problem. Climate change IS “normal”! It’s been going on for ever. The earth warms and it cools, it warms and it cools ~ that is its cycle. It is completely normal.
What isn’t normal, what is tipping the balance NOW, is that man has done (and is doing) things that are preventing the earth from doing what is normal for the earth to do. The deniers and nay-sayers can’t seem to wrap their minds around that.
I wonder if your sister would understand the issue a bit better if you could compare it to the annual salmon run? Where salmon, as is their natural cycle, return to their place of hatching to spawn [before they die.] They do this year after year after year. Only problem, now, is: many of the rivers that the salmon historically swam up to get to their spawning grounds have been compromised and they can’t get to where they need to go to perpetuate the species. The poor salmon keep struggling to get to where they need to go, but dams, levies, agricultural run-off etc., have made it nigh on to impossible for them to travel those waters to fulfill their natural cycle.
That salmon return to their hatching place to spawn IS normal ~ that they have to ‘fight’ the results of man-made obstacles and changes to get to their hatching place is NOT normal. To be sure, some salmon still make it to where they need to go to complete their cycle, BUT the numbers that are able to, has fallen alarmingly low in the past few decades. This is NOT normal; the decline is a direct result of what man [general] is doing and the impact of that doing.
We can’t keep putting up dams, over-fishing, dumping toxics into the waters, and expect the salmon to NOT be adversely impacted. We can’t keep polluting the air, chopping down trees, and etc. and expect the earth to cycle naturally through its warming and cooling trends, either. It boggles my mind that people cannot (or will not) acknowledge that if you screw up one part of a mechanism, the whole mechanism is thrown out of whack.
So, yeah, climate change IS normal; man throwing monkey wrenches into that ‘normalcy’, however, makes any semblance of the earth’s ‘normal’ moot. beth.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:04 AM
See no evil
You would think people who could convince themselves, for no compelling reason, that God “wrote” the Bible, would be more sympathetic to scientific evidence right in front of their noses.
December 10th, 2009 at 11:36 AM
Maybe too late, but the WaPo has an opinion piece today comparing Sarah Palin with tobacco company executives who denied the evidence about “the addictive quality and devastating health impacts of cigarette smoking…”
Maybe this was their plan all along, to let her have her say and then they could slap her down.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/09/AR2009120903860.html
December 10th, 2009 at 11:43 AM
Interesting… very interesting.
But, man. He’s a Bates man. And wears pink shirts and… sperry topsiders!!
Okay… so… he worked for an Independent Maine governor… Langeley?
December 10th, 2009 at 11:58 AM
Thank for your post on this site. I greatly enjoyed your piece.
Keep fighting the good fight.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:23 PM
Thanks to everyone for the feedback and other links…WaPo op-ed is great…and yes, a Batsie, pink shirts in the tropics (didn’t bother to bring one to Alaska-I had plenty of plaid shirts for formal wear), and do love the topsiders for boats though the Bean boots did the trick in subzero AK weather… the independent gov was my friend Angus King, he was a great Gov and was always on a first name basis with everyone…
December 10th, 2009 at 4:15 PM
while driving cross-country a few weeks ago, i wandered upon a right-wingee talk show (actually that was all that was available) and they said the strangest thing:
- god created the planet and the weather
- man can’t change the weather
- so if climate change is real — that implies man changed god’s miracle
and that is apparently just not possible. i had never heard the argument quite that succinctly and it makes perfect sense – admitting to man-induced climate change is an affront to god.
wow. who knew?
then i turned off the radio. silence can be consoling on the road.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:24 PM
Very nice article. Global warming, like many chaotic subjects, is not readily perceivable at “gut level”. Every bloody (Northern Hemisphere) winter, you get thousands of folks writing in to say “It snowed today, so where’s that global warming?” I’ve just about lost hope. I suspect we’ll have to wait until it reaches FD (D = disaster) status, and then try to react technologically. And all those thousands of deniers will be wondering why the gummint didn’t see this coming.
nanceindallas/beth: It’s common for people to get a little confused about baseline (without humans) climate variation and the effect of humans on climate. Beth has laid it out. (1) Yes, there was climate variation before humans, and those forcing functions continue to exist. (2) There is overwhelming evidence that an anthropogenic contribution to global warming exists. (3) The global climatic trend over the last few centuries has been warming (legitimate scientists like Lenzen admit this is true).
The conclusion that some folks have trouble accepting is that — even if much of the global warming trend is due to non-human sources — the only thing we can do to mitigate it is to reduce (or at least stabilize) the anthropogenic contribution. How high do you want mean sea level to rise?
December 11th, 2009 at 2:26 PM
Great article…thanks for the post
to add your voice…this weekend there are candlelight vigils being held world wide…avaaz.com…you can go to that site…see on the map if one is being planned near you….if not…gather some folks together, get some candles, and add your voice
hopefully all will hear our voices loud and clear…save our planet
December 12th, 2009 at 10:50 PM
Shipbright Great article,will go thru your site a little later.somehow I missed this article,i guess letting my grandson use my computer for a few days would do that.
Beth your points are very well made in fact i used them on someone tonight so thanks.