tagged w/ Denial
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Sure, you thought nothing good could come from ExxonMobil’s pipeline spill of some 200,000 gallons into the residential streets of Mayflower, Arkansas.
After all, it was “low-quality Wabasca Heavy crude oil from Alberta.” And a technicality has spared Exxon from having to pay any money into the fund that will be covering most of the clean up costs — a 1980 law ensures that diluted bitumen is not classified as oil.
But ExxonMobil reports from the Mayflower Incident Unified Command Joint Information Center that even this cloud of oil has a silver lining:
“The majority of the impacted wildlife has been reptiles, primarily venomous snakes.”
Strangely, HuffPost reports, “According to its Facebook page, the Helping Arkansas Wild Kritters (HAWK) Center, which has worked to help scores of animals hurt by the March 29 spill, has not rescued any venomous snakes, but has cared for many birds.”
By Joe Romm on Apr 14, 2013 at 11:06 amSure, you thought nothing good could come from ExxonMobil’s pipeline spill of... more
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Denial, in ordinary English usage, is asserting that a statement or allegation is not true. The same word, and also abnegation, is used for a psychological defense mechanism postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. The subject may use:
- simple denial: deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether
- minimisation: admit the fact but deny its seriousness (a combination of denial and rationalization)
- projection: admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility by blaming somebody or something else.
The concept of denial is particularly important to the study of addiction. The theory of denial was first researched seriously by Anna Freud. She classified denial as a mechanism of the immature mind, because it conflicts with the ability to learn from and cope with reality. Where denial occurs in mature minds, it is most often associated with death, dying and rape. More recent research has significantly expanded the scope and utility of the concept. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross used denial as the first of five stages in the psychology of a dying patient, and the idea has been extended to include the reactions of survivors to news of a death. Thus, when parents are informed of the death of a child, their first reaction is often of the form, "No! You must have the wrong house, you can't mean our child!"
Unlike some other defense mechanisms postulated by psychoanalytic theory (for instance, repression), the general existence of denial is fairly easy to verify, even for non-specialists.
On the other hand, denial is one of the most controversial defense mechanisms, since it can be easily used to create unfalsifiable theories: anything the subject says or does that appears to disprove the interpreter's theory is explained, not as evidence that the interpreter's theory is wrong, but as the subject's being "in denial". However, researchers note that in some cases of corroborated child sexual abuse, the victims sometimes make a series of partial confessions and recantations as they struggle with their own denial and the denial of abusers or family members. Use of denial theory in a legal setting therefore must be carefully regulated and experts' credentials verified. "Formulaic guilt" simply by "being a denier" has been castigated by English judges and academics.
Continued at linkDenial, in ordinary English usage, is asserting that a statement or allegation is not... more
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On issues ranging from genetically modified crops to nuclear power, environmentalists are increasingly refusing to listen to scientific arguments that challenge standard green positions. This approach risks weakening the environmental movement and empowering climate contrarians.
by Fred Pearce
From Rachel Carson’s 'Silent Spring' to James Hansen’s modern-day tales of climate apocalypse, environmentalists have long looked to good science and good scientists and embraced their findings. Often we have had to run hard to keep up with the crescendo of warnings coming out of academia about the perils facing the world. A generation ago, biologist Paul Ehrlich’s 'The Population Bomb' and systems analysts Dennis and Donella Meadows 'The Limits to Growth' shocked us with their stark visions of where the world was headed. No wide-eyed greenie had predicted the opening of an ozone hole before the pipe-smoking boffins of the British Antarctic Survey spotted it when looking skyward back in 1985. On issues ranging from ocean acidification and tipping points in the Arctic to the dangers of nanotechnology, the scientists have always gotten there first — and the environmentalists have followed.
And yet, recently, the environment movement seems to have been turning up on the wrong side of the scientific argument. We have been making claims that simply do not stand up. We are accused of being anti-science — and not without reason. A few, even close friends, have begun to compare this casual contempt for science with the tactics of climate contrarians.
That should hurt.
Continued at linkOn issues ranging from genetically modified crops to nuclear power, environmentalists... more
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A new study has dispelled the myth that the public are divided about climate change because they don't understand the science behind it.
And the Yale research published today reveals that if Americans knew more basic science and were more proficient in technical reasoning it would still result in a gap between public and scientific consensus.
Indeed, as members of the public become more science literate and numerate, the study found, individuals belonging to opposing cultural groups become even more divided on the risks that climate change poses.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the study was conducted by researchers associated with the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School and involved a nationally representative sample of 1500 U.S. adults.
"The aim of the study was to test two hypotheses," said Dan Kahan, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School and a member of the study team. "The first attributes political controversy over climate change to the public's limited ability to comprehend science, and the second, to opposing sets of cultural values.
The findings supported the second hypothesis and not the first," he said.
"Cultural cognition" is the term used to describe the process by which individuals' group values shape their perceptions of societal risks. It refers to the unconscious tendency of people to fit evidence of risk to positions that predominate in groups to which they belong.
The results of the study were consistent with previous studies that show that individuals with more egalitarian values disagree sharply with individuals who have more individualistic ones on the risks associated with nuclear power, gun possession, and the HPV vaccine for school girls.A new study has dispelled the myth that the public are divided about climate change... more
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A 2005 shot of Brendan Margison surfing in front of the now-damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima. Photo: Aichner
AFTER A MONTH OF SHUT DOWN NUCLEAR REACTORS AT SAN O, THE HAZARDS OF NUCLEAR ENERGY SPELL POTENTIAL DISASTER IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAA 2005 shot of Brendan Margison surfing in front of the now-damaged nuclear power... more
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The Heartland Institute has confirmed in a prepared statement that it mistakenly emailed its board materials to an anonymous third party - confirming the source of the documents released here on the DeSmogBlog yesterday.
Heartland then goes on allege that one of the documents (the Climate Strategy) is a fake.
The DeSmogBlog has reviewed that Strategy document and compared its content to other material we have in hand. It addresses five elements:
The Increased Climate Project Fundraising material is reproduced in and confirmed by Heartland's own budget.
The "Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms" is also a Heartland budget item and has been confirmed independently by the author, Dr. David Wojick.
The Funding for Parallel Organizations; Funding for Selected Individuals Outside Heartland are both reproduced and confirmed in the Heartland budget. And Anthony Watts has confirmed independently the payments in Expanded Climate Communications.
The DeSmogBlog has received no direct communications from the Heartland Institute identifying any misstatement of fact in the "Climate Strategy" document and is therefore leaving the material available to those who may judge their content and veracity based on these and other sources.
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Heartland Insider Exposes Institute's Budget and Strategy
An anonymous donor calling him (or her)self "Heartland Insider" has released the Heartland Institute's budget, fundraising plan, its Climate Strategy for 2012 and sundry other documents (all attached) that prove all of the worst allegations that have been levelled against the organization.
It is clear from the documents that Heartland advocates against responsible climate mitigation and then uses that advocacy to raise money from oil companies and "other corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies." Heartland particularly celebrates the funding that it receives from the fossil fuel fortune being the Charles G. Koch Foundation.
Heartland also continues to collect money from Philip Morris parent company Altria as well as from the tobacco giant Reynolds American, while maintaining ongoing advocacy against policies related to smoking and health.
Heartland's policy positions, strategies and budget distinguish it clear as a lobby firm that is misrepresenting itself as a "think tank" - it budgets $4.1 million of its $6.4 million in projected expenditures for Editorial, Government Relations, Communications, Fundraising, and Publications, and the only activity it plans that could vaguely be considered policy development is the writing of a curriculum package for use in confusing high schoolers about climate change.
There will be more comment and analysis to follow on DeSmogBlog and elsewhere, but we wanted to make this information available so that others can also scrutinize the documents and bring their expertise to the task.
Attachment Size
(1-15-2012) 2012 Fundraising Plan.pdf 89.87 KB
(1-15-2012) 2012 Heartland Budget (2).pdf 124.62 KB
2 Agenda for January 17 Meeting.pdf 7.4 KB
2010_IRS_Form_990 (2).pdf 2.7 MB
2012 Climate Strategy (3).pdf 96.56 KB
Binder1 (2).pdf 55.36 KB
Board Directory 01-18-12.pdf 11.28 KB
Board Meeting Package January 17.pdf 6.84 KB
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Heartland Institute Exposed: Internal Documents Unmask Heart of Climate Denial Machine
Internal Heartland Institute strategy and funding documents obtained by DeSmogBlog expose the heart of the climate denial machine – its current plans, many of its funders, and details that confirm what DeSmogBlog and others have reported for years. The heart of the climate denial machine relies on huge corporate and foundation funding from U.S. businesses including Microsoft, Koch Industries, Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) RJR Tobacco and more.
We are releasing the entire trove of documents now to allow crowd-sourcing of the material. Here are a few quick highlights, stay tuned for much more. -Confirmation that Charles G. Koch Foundation is again funding Heartland Institute’s global warming disinformation campaign. Greenpeace’s Koch reports show the last time Heartland received Koch funding was in 1999.
The January 2012 Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy states:
“We will also pursue additional support from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. They returned as a Heartland donor in 2011 with a contribution of $200,000. We expect to push up their level of support in 2012 and gain access to their network of philanthropists, if our focus continues to align with their interests. Other contributions will be pursued for this work, especially from corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies.”
-Heartland Institute’s global warming denial machine is chiefly – and perhaps entirely – funded by one Anonymous donor:
“Our climate work is attractive to funders, especially our key Anonymous Donor (whose contribution dropped from $1,664,150 in 2010 to $979,000 in 2011 - about 20% of our total 2011 revenue). He has promised an increase in 2012…”
-Confirmation of exact amounts flowing to certain key climate contrarians.
“funding for high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist AGW message. At the moment, this funding goes primarily to Craig Idso ($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses), Robert Carter ($1,667 per month), and a number of other individuals, but we will consider expanding it, if funding can be found.”
-As Brad Johnson reported today at ThinkProgress, confirmation that Heartland is working with David Wojick, a U.S. Energy Department contract worker and coal industry consultant, to develop a ‘Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Schools.’
-Forbes and other business press are favored outlets for Heartland’s dissemination of climate denial messages, and the group is worried about maintaining that exclusive space. They note in particular the work of Dr. Peter Gleick:
“Efforts at places such as Forbes are especially important now that they have begun to allow high-profile climate scientists (such as Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own. This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out.” (emphasis added)
Note the irony here that Heartland Institute – one of the major mouthpieces behind the debunked ‘Climategate’ email theft who harped about the suppression of denier voices in peer-reviewed literature – now defending its turf in the unscientific business magazine realm.
-Interesting mentions of Andrew Revkin as a potential ally worth “cultivating,” along with Judith Curry.
“Efforts might also include cultivating more neutral voices with big audiences (such as Revkin at DotEarth/NYTimes, who has a well-known antipathy for some of the more extreme AGW communicators such as Romm, Trenberth, and Hansen) or Curry (who has become popular with our supporters).”
-Confirmation that skeptic blogger Anthony Watts is part of Heartland’s funded network of misinformation communicators.
“We have also pledged to help raise around $90,000 in 2012 for Anthony Watts to help him create a new website to track temperature station data.”
Stay tuned for more details as DeSmogBlog and others dig through this trove of Heartland Institute documents. The Heartland Institute's legacy of evasion of this level of transparency and accountability has now been shattered.
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Just for informational purposes, the Heartland poster used as the picture - all bs.The Heartland Institute has confirmed in a prepared statement that it mistakenly... more
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11 Lessons learned during the '11 political season! Hopefully the rest of us are keeping up with the learning curve!11 Lessons learned during the '11 political season! Hopefully the rest of us are... more
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It seems like the only thing Trolls listen to is a strong, firm voice.
They’re like dogs that way. If you have a high-pitched, squeaky voice, dogs don’t take you seriously. My dogs are no different. When they’re acting up or misbehaving and my wife tells them to lie down, it depends on their mood. When I tell them to lie down, it’s like their legs disconnect from their brains and they drop where they stand.
So, let’s deal with this Troll and put him down once and for all.
http://www.turningovertherocks.com/2012/01/04/puttin-on-my-troll-stompin-boots/It seems like the only thing Trolls listen to is a strong, firm voice.... more
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Police officers investigating the theft of thousands of private emails between climate scientists from a University of East Anglia server in 2009 have seized computer equipment belonging to a web content editor based at the University of Leeds.
The glacial investigation into the stolen emails has experienced rapid, unprecedented warming that very much appears to be caused by humans, in this case the Norfolk police.
The UK Guardian reports today:
On Wednesday, detectives from Norfolk Constabulary entered the home of Roger Tattersall, who writes a climate sceptic blog under the pseudonym TallBloke, and took away two laptops and a broadband router. A police spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday that Norfolk Constabulary had “executed a search warrant in West Yorkshire and seized computers”. She added: “No one was arrested. Investigations into the [UEA] data breach and publication [online of emails] continues. This is one line of enquiry in a Norfolk constabulary investigation which started in 2009″….
Both Tattersall and a US-based climate sceptic blogger known as Jeff Id said they had received a “formal request” via the blogging platform WordPress from the US Department of Justice’s criminal division, dated 9 December, to preserve “all stored communications, records, and other evidence in your possession” related to their own blogs as well as to Climate Audit, a climate sceptic blog run by a Canadian mining consultant called Steve McIntyre. All three blogs had received messages from “FOIA” last month pointing to the link hosting a second tranche of emails first taken from the UEA in 2009.
It’s funny to see the hyperventilating at the denier websites. As you know, the deniers routinely assume any scientist being independently investigated is almost certainly guilty, that any scientist exonerated by an independent investigation is definitely guilty, and that thousands of actual evidence-based studies are part of a grand conspiracy to deceive humanity.
Unlike the deniers, however, we stay evidence-based, so the fact that the police have seized TallBloke’s computers and told a U.S. denier not to delete or destroy any evidence is not proof in the least bit of their involvement in any crime.
Tattersall posted his own account of the police search on his blog: “An Englishman’s home is his castle they say. Not when six detectives from the Metropolitan police, the Norfolk constabulary and the computer crime division arrive on your doorstep with a warrant to search it though … They ended up settling for two laptops and an ADSL broadband router … I got the feeling something was on the go last night when WordPress [the internet host for his blog] forwarded a notice from the US Department of Justice.”
Speaking to the Guardian, Tattersall said: “I am happy to assist the police with their inquiries because I haven’t been hiding anything important like some people have. I assisted them with their inquiries, which involved voluntarily answering some questions regarding computer use etc.”
Last month, Tattersall’s blog, as well as at least four other blogs popular with climate sceptics, received a comment from a user called “FOIA” providing a link to a Russian server hosting a compressed folder containing more than 5,000 emails exchanged between climate scientists, along with a short message setting out the perpetrator’s motives. The folder also contained an encrypted subfolder containing a further 220,000 emails. It was the second time such a release had occurred.
More at the linkPolice officers investigating the theft of thousands of private emails between climate... more
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The headline on the 1975 report was bold: “Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” And this article that coined the term may have marked the last time a mention of “global warming” didn’t set off an instant outcry of angry denial.In the paper, Columbia University geoscientist Wally Broecker calculated how much carbon dioxide would accumulate in the atmosphere in the coming 35 years, and how temperatures consequently would rise. His numbers have proven almost dead-on correct. Meanwhile, other powerful evidence poured in over those decades, showing the “greenhouse effect” is real and is happening. And yet resistance to the idea among many in the U.S. appears to have hardened.
What’s going on?
“The desire to disbelieve deepens as the scale of the threat grows,” concludes economist-ethicist Clive Hamilton.
He and others who track what they call “denialism” find that its nature is changing in America, last redoubt of climate naysayers. It has taken on a more partisan, ideological tone. Polls find a widening Republican-Democrat gap on climate. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry even accuses climate scientists of lying for money. Global warming looms as a debatable question in yet another U.S. election campaign.
The A.P. has published journalist Charles Hanley’s nearly 2000-word essay on U.S. climate denial, “The American ‘allergy’ to global warming: Why?”
The piece is an excellent edition to a growing group that includes, WashPost stunner: “The GOP’s climate-change denial may be its most harmful delusion” and National Journal: “The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones.”
Here is more:
The basic physics of anthropogenic — manmade — global warming has been clear for more than a century, since researchers proved that carbon dioxide traps heat. Others later showed CO2 was building up in the atmosphere from the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. Weather stations then filled in the rest: Temperatures were rising.“As a physicist, putting CO2 into the air is good enough for me. It’s the physics that convinces me,” said veteran Cambridge University researcher Liz Morris. But she said work must go on to refine climate data and computer climate models, “to convince the deeply reluctant organizers of this world.”
The reluctance to rein in carbon emissions revealed itself early on.
In the 1980s, as scientists studied Greenland’s buried ice for clues to past climate, upgraded their computer models peering into the future, and improved global temperature analyses, the fossil-fuel industries were mobilizing for a campaign to question the science.
By 1988, NASA climatologist James Hansen could appear before a U.S. Senate committee and warn that global warming had begun, a dramatic announcement later confirmed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a new, U.N.-sponsored network of hundreds of international scientists.
But when Hansen was called back to testify in 1989, the White House of President George H.W. Bush edited this government scientist’s remarks to water down his conclusions, and Hansen declined to appear.
That was the year U.S. oil and coal interests formed the Global Climate Coalition to combat efforts to shift economies away from their products. Britain’s Royal Society and other researchers later determined that oil giant Exxon disbursed millions of dollars annually to think tanks and a handful of supposed experts to sow doubt about the facts.
In 1997, two years after the IPCC declared the “balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate,” the world’s nations gathered in Kyoto, Japan, to try to do something about it. The naysayers were there as well.
“The statement that we’ll have continued warming with an increase in CO2 is opinion, not fact,” oil executive William F. O’Keefe of the Global Climate Coalition insisted to reporters in Kyoto.
The late Bert Bolin, then IPCC chief, despaired.
“I’m not really surprised at the political reaction,” the Swedish climatologist told The Associated Press. “I am surprised at the way some of the scientific findings have been rejected in an unscientific manner.”
In fact, a document emerged years later showing that the industry coalition’s own scientific team had quietly advised it that the basic science of global warming was indisputable.
See “Scientists advising fossil fuel funded anti-climate group concluded in 1995: The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of GHGs such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied”
Kyoto’s final agreement called for limited rollbacks in greenhouse emissions. The United States didn’t even join in that. And by 2000, the CO2 built up in the atmosphere to 369 parts per million — just 4 ppm less than Broecker predicted — compared with 280 ppm before the industrial revolution.
Global temperatures rose as well, by 0.6 degrees C (1.1 degrees F) in the 20th century. And the mercury just kept rising. The decade 2000-2009 was the warmest on record, and 2010 and 2005 were the warmest years on record.
Costal threat prediction
Satellite and other monitoring, meanwhile, found nights were warming faster than days, and winters more than summers, and the upper atmosphere was cooling while the lower atmosphere warmed — all clear signals greenhouse warming was at work, not some other factor.
The impact has been widespread.
An authoritative study this August reported that hundreds of species are retreating toward the poles, egrets showing up in southern England, American robins in Eskimo villages. Some, such as polar bears, have nowhere to go. Eventual large-scale extinctions are feared.
The heat is cutting into wheat yields, nurturing beetles that are destroying northern forests, attracting malarial mosquitoes to higher altitudes.
From the Rockies to the Himalayas, glaciers are shrinking, sending ever more water into the world’s seas. Because of accelerated melt in Greenland and elsewhere, the eight-nation Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program projects ocean levels will rise 90 to 160 centimeters (35 to 63 inches) by 2100, threatening coastlines everywhere.
“We are scared, really and truly,” diplomat Laurence Edwards, from the Pacific’s Marshall Islands, told the AP before the 1997 Kyoto meeting.
Today in these low-lying islands, rising seas have washed away shoreline graveyards, saltwater has invaded wells, and islanders seek aid to build a seawall to shield their capital.
The oceans are turning more acidic, too, from absorbing excess carbon dioxide. Acidifying seas will harm plankton, shellfish and other marine life up the food chain. Biologists fear the world’s coral reefs, home to much ocean life and already damaged from warmer waters, will largely disappear in this century.
Arctic ice cap
The greatest fears may focus on “feedbacks” in the Arctic, warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.
The Arctic Ocean’s summer ice cap has shrunk by half and is expected to essentially vanish by 2030 or 2040, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported Sept. 15. Ashore, meanwhile, the Arctic tundra’s permafrost is thawing and releasing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
These changes will feed on themselves: Released methane leads to warmer skies, which will release more methane. Ice-free Arctic waters absorb more of the sun’s heat than do reflective ice and snow, and so melt will beget melt. The frozen Arctic is a controller of Northern Hemisphere climate; an unfrozen one could upend age-old weather patterns across continents.
more at the linkThe headline on the 1975 report was bold: “Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced... more
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July was so hot “that just by plotting the location of each daily heat record that was broken, a nearly complete image of the contiguous United States is visible,” reports NOAA. “Almost 9,000 daily records were broken or tied last month, including 2,755 highest maximum temperatures and 6,171 highest minimum temperatures (i.e., nighttime records).” “Some cities reached daily high temperatures 19 out of the 31 days in the month.” The data is incomplete, as they “only include weather stations with real-time electronic reporting, which accounts for about two-thirds of the locations.”
By Brad Johnson on Aug 5, 2011 at 10:00 amJuly was so hot “that just by plotting the location of each daily heat record... more
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Despite the symptoms, despite it all, I will not have cancer. I refuse. I took the blood test, I submitted the other sample, I will have the CT scan, but I will NOT have cancer. http://www.billschmalfeldt.com/?p=25677Despite the symptoms, despite it all, I will not have cancer. I refuse. I took the... more
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By Brad Johnson on Jul 26, 2011 at 10:00 am
During yesterday’s “filibreather” of the 2012 environmental budget bill (HR 2584), Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) railed against the efforts by the Republican majority to prevent action on climate pollution. The bill’s cuts in funding for greenhouse gas programs and regulations “severely limit actions the administration could take” to permit, control and even monitor the pollution. Connolly rightly observed that the extreme weather disasters around the United States are the “symptoms of global warming,” but Republicans are putting ecosystems, infrastructure, and public health at risk with their denial:
“The Republican majority seems to be living in an alternative reality. As Americans face unprecedented drought in the Southwest, record floods in the Mississippi basin, record heat here in Eastern and Midwestern cities, accelerating sea level rises and other symptoms of global warming, this bill blocks funding even to monitor global warming. Not only do Republicans deny the existence of global warming, apparently, they have even blocked funding to monitor its impacts.
"This reckless policy rider doesn’t just endanger polar bears, coral reefs and countless other species and ecosystems, it endangers American infrastructure. From the Norfolk naval base to the Jefferson Memorial. It endangers American public health by increasing smog pollution and heat-related deaths, as we’ve seen from the recent heat wave that swept across the East and Midwest United States, setting record temperatures here in Washington, DC, Newark and other cities across the Eastern seaboard.”
Hundreds of Americans have died and billions of dollars have been lost from this year’s record climate disasters, but the Republican House majority is stripping the nation of our ability to fight against the threat of climate pollution.
“I urge my colleagues to reject this reckless legislation that defunds critical land programs, eviscerates 40 years of bipartisan environmental standards and desecrates the memory of Teddy Roosevelt,” Connolly concluded.By Brad Johnson on Jul 26, 2011 at 10:00 am
During yesterday’s... more
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http://progressivesforgore.blogspot.com/2011/07/24-hours-of-reality.html
It's way past time to cut through all of the propaganda spewed forth incessantly by the same interests that care nothing for this planet or your future. It's the only way to have one now. We are running out of time.
We will not solve this crisis until we all resolve to be a part of the solution.
Will you participate in Reality?
I am going to try to put together a movie of my own that connects these dots and post it in as many places as I can.
I am going to be relentless in letting the US government know that as citizens we will not allow them to continue to betray our trust and the environmental stability that affects all of the other facets of our lives.
I am going to continue filming my own user created content program "Biorhythms" for the Current site under Earth Care, and on it I will continue to present news of the environment we do not see reported on MSM with a focus on humanity, environment and the meaning of the events taking place now.
I will also continue to pledge to live my own life by walking lightly upon this Earth and fighting to hold those who deliberately destroy it and the indigenous peoples of this world who inhabit those places accountable and to bring them to justice.
It's time to raise our voices in truth and Reality.
Satyagraha.http://progressivesforgore.blogspot.com/2011/07/24-hours-of-reality.html
It's... more
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Is America in denial about the extent of its financial problems, and therefore incapable of dealing with the gravest crisis the country has ever faced?
This is a story of debt, delusion and - potentially - disaster. For America and, if you happen to think that American influence is broadly a good thing, for the world.
The debt and the delusion are both all-American: $14 trillion (£8.75tn) of debt has been amassed and there is no cogent plan to reduce it.
The figure is impossible to comprehend: easier to focus on the fact that it grows at $40,000 (£25,000) a second. Getting out of Afghanistan will help but actually only at the margins. The problem is much bigger than any one area of expenditure.
The economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, is no rabid fiscal conservative but on the debt he is a hawk:
"I'm worried. The debt is large. It should be brought under control. The longer we wait, the longer we suffer this kind of paralysis; the more America boxes itself into a corner and the more America's constructive leadership in the world diminishes."
The author and economist Diane Coyle agrees. And she makes the rather alarming point that the acknowledged deficit is not the whole story.
The current $14tn debt is bad enough, she argues, but the future commitments to the baby boomers, commitments for health care and for pensions, suggest that the debt burden is part of the fabric of society:
"You have promises implicit in the structure of welfare states and aging populations that mean there is an unacknowledged debt that will have to be paid for by future taxpayers, and that could double the published figures."
Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations acknowledges that this structural commitment to future debt is not unique to the United States. All advanced democracies have more or less the same problem, he says, "but in the case of the States the figures are absolutely enormous".
Mr Haass, a former senior US diplomat, is leading an academic push for America's debt to be taken seriously by Americans and noticed as well by the rest of the world.
He uses the analogy of Suez and the pressure that was put on the UK by the US to withdraw from that adventure. The pressure was not, of course, military. It was economic.
more at link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13906274Is America in denial about the extent of its financial problems, and therefore... more
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So what do you think, this there climate change or as the people in the great south middle of the U.S. keep thinking, not really, as their land dries up and their last hope is god - how strange is that? These people that feel the pain also are in denial and 'god bless them' - they need all the help they can get. Your next.So what do you think, this there climate change or as the people in the great south... more
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There is a great deal of attention surrounding UFOs and Disclosure these days. Sightings have increased worldwide and it seems the veil is thinning. Many people, including certain UFO researchers, talk about an imminent disclosure of perhaps the biggest secret in the history of mankind.
The alternative community is fascinated by this topic, giving us all kinds of explanations and information about "the topic of all topics". But anyone who has looked into the UFO phenomenon a bit deeper knows that there is more to it than what meets the eye. There are certain issues that are overlooked or even ignored by some prominent advocates of disclosure and exopolitics.
One of the most misunderstood aspects of the UFO subject is the hyperdimensional and paraphysical nature of the phenomenon, as well as the idea that humanity may not be as "special" and untouchable as we believe ourselves to be.
Be it history, politics, religion, psychology, science, education or health, we're being lied to in virtually all areas of our lives and our attention is being vectored away from the truth. As a matter of fact, those who get too close to the truth are often attacked and ridiculed. Truth is no good for business in a ponerized society with psychopaths in power, steering the ship where pathological traits have become the accepted norm in our official culture.
However, wishful thinking and denial about the state of the world creates even more self-deception with people dreaming to wake up, yet still asleep. The topic of UFOs and disclosure is certainly not exempt from being used as a way to misinform and distract the masses from the truth, yet behind the smoke screen and disinformation it may hold major clues in regards to what is happening to us and the world, present and past. The task, as always, is to separate truth from lies, within and without.
This following video series explores the secrecy surrounding the greatest cover-up of all time, presenting an overview of the UFO phenomenon, aliens, abductions, disclosure, and hyperdimensional realities. It's easy to come to hasty conclusions and assumptions about this topic, so make sure to watch all 8 parts and look up the the resources mentioned in the video for more information.There is a great deal of attention surrounding UFOs and Disclosure these days.... more
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Facts apparently are not the best way to persuade republicans to see your point of view.
To quote the article:
"And sure enough, one key predictor of whether you accept the science of global warming is whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. The two groups have been growing more divided in their views about the topic, even as the science becomes more unequivocal.
So perhaps it should come as no surprise that more education doesn't budge Republican views. On the contrary: In a 2008 Pew survey, for instance, only 19 percent of college-educated Republicans agreed that the planet is warming due to human actions, versus 31 percent of non-college educated Republicans. In other words, a higher education correlated with an increased likelihood of denying the science on the issue. Meanwhile, among Democrats and independents, more education correlated with greater acceptance of the science."
----it later states:
"You can follow the logic to its conclusion: Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a "culture war of fact." In other words, paradoxically, you don't lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values—so as to give the facts a fighting chance."
Article is about more than just climate change science.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooneyFacts apparently are not the best way to persuade republicans to see your point of... more
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"Prescription for Survival": A Debate on the Future of Nuclear Energy Between Anti-Coal Advocate George Monbiot and Anti-Nuclear Activist Dr. Helen Caldicott
The crisis in Japan has refueled the rigorous global debate about the viability of nuclear power. Japan remains in a "state of maximum alert" as the experts scramble to contain radiation that is leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Nuclear energy remains a controversial topic in climate change discourse, as environmental activists argue how to best reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted into the atmosphere—often the debate pits one non-renewable energy against another as renewable energy technology and research remains underfunded. Democracy Now! hosts a debate today about the future of nuclear energy between British journalist George Monbiot and Dr. Helen Caldicott. Monbiot has written extensively about the environmental and health dangers caused by burning coal for energy, and despite the Fukushima catastrophe, stands behind nuclear power. Caldicott is a world-renowned anti-nuclear advocate who has spent decades warning of the medical hazards posed by nuclear technologies, and while agreeing about the dangers of burning coal, insists the best option is to ban nuclear power."Prescription for Survival": A Debate on the Future of Nuclear Energy... more
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It’s no surprise that the Republicans in the House of Representatives want to do away with the EPA’s rules on greenhouse gas emissions. But H.R.910, the bill to strip EPA authority over greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, provides at least two examples of how Republicans have chosen the blue pill of delusion instead of the red pill of reality.It’s no surprise that the Republicans in the House of Representatives want to do... more
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