A Change in the Wind

A huge smokestack of war: Vaclav Havel

As a boy, I lived for a time in the country and I clearly remember an experience from those days: I used to walk school in a nearby village along a cart track through the fields and, on the way, see on the horizon a huge smokestack of war. It spewed dense brown smoke and scattered it across the sky. Each time I saw it, I had an intense sense of something profoundly wrong, of humans soiling the heavens. I have no idea whether there was something like a science of ecology in those days; if there was, I certainly knew nothing of it. It seemed to me that, in it, humans are guilty of something, that they destroy something important, arbitrarily disrupting the natural order of things, and that such things cannot go unpunished. To be sure, my revulsion was largely aesthetic; I knew nothing then of the noxious emissions which would one day devastate our forests, exterminate game, and endanger the health of the people. 

If a medieval man were to see something like that suddenly on the horizon -- say, while out hunting -- he would probably think it the work of the Devil and would fall on his knees and pray that he and his kin be saved. 

Văclav Havel, Politics and Conscience, 1984 speech

How far we have come on global warming -- not!

Yesterday Jason Margolis for The World had an absolutely first-class analysis of the presidential politics of global warming. He began with the GOP front-runner's silence on the issue, which Margolis contrasted against the GOP candidate of four years ago. Here's what John McCain said about climate change while running for President as a Republican:

“It’s real. It’s a danger to our planet, it’s a danger to the future of these young people who are in front of me and their children. And it’s got to be stopped.”

Amazing. Today Mitt Romney ignores climate change, while Newt Gingrinch describes his call for action on it "the stupidest thing he's ever done," and Rick Santorum calls global warming a hoax. 

Liberals and Democrats shouldn't self-congratulate, though, because President Obama is as silent on the issue as is Romney. He mentioned climate change in the State of the Union address only to say that nothing could pass Congress on the subject. That is, he blamed the GOP for the inaction.

And "we the people" are no better, as Margolis points out: 

Perhaps the president and the Republican candidates are simply following our lead. According to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center, Americans ranked global warming as the least important of 22 priorities, just behind campaign finance reform.

Campaign finance reform -- John McCain's other signature issue. No wonder he lost. 

For a shockingly entertaining explanation of the power of global warming, take a look at the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Jerry Meehl talking about climate change...and steroids in baseball.

Ormond beach: the beautiful problem

My cover story this week in the Reporter, on "the broken mirror" of Ormond Beach. This is about 1500 acores along about two miles of beach in South Oxnard, astonishingly rich in shorelife, somehow trying to hold its beauty and vigor amidst monocultural agriculture and heavy industry. 

And here's a picture I took, of a young biologist named Chris Kahler, of VC Shorebirds, and his friend and fellow volunteer Walter Fuller, in his beachside office. How Walter explaind his job to me:

“I’m the gatekeeper at one spot, and the property caretaker for the area, and it’s a big property!” he laughs, referring to the roughly two-mile stretch of white sand and dunes between Port Hueneme to the north and the Naval Base Ventura County, Point Mugu, to the south.

“It’s like I’m taking it on as my responsibility. When I’m out on the beach, I’m watching for injured birds or dead birds; and when the gate’s open I’m watching the parking lot, and if I see any break-ins I notify the appropriate authorities."

Great guys. 

Dozens of tornadoes devastate the South -- in January

A rare mid-winter brace of hurricanes devastates the South; 150-mph winds recorded. Two dozen or so tornadoes sweeps through four states -- Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina -- killing six people, injuring a hundred or more, and leaving countless others homeless. 

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Amazing more people weren't killed. Some of the survivors intend to move away from tornado country, just months after the last visited by record-setting storms, the likes of which destroyed Joplin.

In eastern Alabama, a suspected twister splintered trees and demolished mobile homes at a pair of housing parks near the Auburn University campus. Less than seven months ago, a massive tornado roared past the campus of archrival University of Alabama in the western part of the state. It was the worst bout of weather for the state since about 250 people were killed during the tornado outbreak in April. Both campuses were spared major damage this time.

Jeff Masters: The calendar says it's the coldest month of winter, but today's weather is more typical of March, as a vigorous spring-like storm system has spawned a rare and deadly January tornado outbreak

No small storm system, that -- almost looks to deserve a name. 

Epic win for greens on Keystone XL: Dave Roberts

The Grist editor writes: 

For a year now, courageous activists, Midwestern farmers, unions, and indigenous groups have rallied in an unprecedented display of public opposition to the destructive Keystone XL pipeline proposal. That grassroots movement pushed us to the brink of victory — and today, it seems, the GOP has pushed us over the line. Thanks to their belligerent insistence that the pipeline decision be made within 60 days, it appears likely the State Dept. is going to be forced to reject it.

We environmentalists would hereby extend our most heartfelt thanks to the GOP. Their tantrums are doing our work for us!

Republicans reportedly believe that forcing Obama to reject the pipeline will give them an election-year issue to demagogue. All we can say to that is: Bring it on. If they campaign as poorly as they legislate, Obama has nothing to worry about.

And he's just getting started:

Greens thought they had won a massive, historic victory by delaying the pipeline decision. Now it looks like the thing will be blocked once and for all. Unless I’m missing something, that is an epic win in the green column.

But there's a catch: Dave Roberts posted this almost a month ago, on Dec. 20. Long before the decision came down. 

Can greens stand it to win one, for crying out loud? 

Romney 11/22/05: For and against climate pact on same day

The Internet is an astonishing thing: this evening the the entirety of the book of research into Mitt Romney's record, as compiled by the staff for his bitter GOP rival John McCain's staff in 2008, hit the intertubes.

The 200-page document included this gem of a flip-flop on climate change, as reported in the Boston Globe:

Romney Changed Positions On Regional Agreement Within Span Of One Day.

“At a clean-energyconference in Boston on Nov. 7, Romney sounded exuberant about the Northeast state [climate change] agreement, saying in his speech that it was ‘a great thing for the Commonwealth.’ ‘We can effectively create incentives to help stimulate asector of the economy and at the same time not kill jobs,’ he said.

Later that day, however, Romney outlined to reporters several fears he had about the proposed agreement.”

(Beth Daley and Scott Helman, “Romney Doubts Seen Delaying Emissions Pact,”

[The Boston Globe --  11/22/05]

Romney reminds of Charlie Brown, who used to say -- Why can't I change just a little bit? I'll be wishy one day and washy the next! (31 Dec 65)

Thinking about climate change: Tom Toles

For the beginning of the new year, Toles had this to offer:

Note the tense he employs -- the past.

A persistent La Niña leads to a long stretch of dryness

This year national weather and climate forecasters said they saw a La Niña condition developing in the Pacific, and promised dryness, as they did last year. This year, for virtually all of California, and much of the nation as well, they've been right.

Here's the drought forecast, in a graphic from NOAA [National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration]:

More drought to come, looks like...and it's already killed an estimated half-billion trees in Texas.

Yes, that's 500 million trees, as reported last week in the Houston Chronicle. 

Here's a startling image from Jeff Masters' astounding Wunderblog, showing exactly how dry it's been in the country and virtually the entirety of California this past week.. 

The forecast concludes:

The latest GFS model forecast predicts that this unusually dry pattern will persist for at least the next ten days, with the possibility of it breaking down during the last week of January.

At least Texas got some rain,  thanks to "a highly abnormal jet stream pattern that is keeping the northern polar branch of the jet stream far to the north in Canada."

Hmmmm... 

Take Shelter -- the birds are falling (again)

2012 opens with news of blackbirds falling dead from the sky in Arkansas -- again. 

Thousands of dead blackbirds rained down on a town in central Arkansas last New Year's Eve after revelers set off fireworks that spooked them from their roost, and officials were reporting a similar occurrence Saturday as 2012 approached.

Police in Beebe said dozens of blackbirds had fallen dead, prompting officers to ban residents from shooting fireworks Saturday night. It wasn't immediately clear if fireworks were again to blame, but authorities weren't taking a chance.

Officer John Weeks said the first reports of "birds on the streets" came around 7 p.m. as residents celebrated the year's end with fireworks in their neighborhoods.

"We started shutting down fireworks," he said. "We're working on cleaning up the birds now."

Such was an image in two films this year, both contemplating environmental disaster. (Without the fireworks, admittedly.) The first being Melancholia, where blackbirds fall from the sky, and people plenty of good reasons to look to the heavens, as they contemplate the end.

By contrast, 2011 also featured a beautifully understated dramatic examination of oncoming disaster, called Take Shelter. In this movie a devoted father, plagued by delusional nightmares of a storm the likes of which has never been seen in Ohio, turns his life upside down. He alienates his brother, frightens his wife, and loses his job -- all in the attempt to save his family. 

Despite being devastated by blackbirds falling from the sky, he wonders if he's going crazy. 

Describing what motivated him to make this film, the writer/director Jeff Nichols said:

I wrote TAKE SHELTER because I believed there was a feeling out in the world that was palpable. It was an anxiety that was very real in my life, and I had the notion it was very real in the lives of other Americans as well as other people around the world. This film was a way for me to talk about that fear and that anxiety. I hope there is an answer to this feeling by the end of the film. I believe there is, and it's the reason that this wonderful group of people came together to help me make TAKE SHELTER.

Yes, there is a palpable sense of disaster about to descend -- no? For better or worse. Perhaps we're all wrong, but the fear is there, among us. 

Leave aside the much-reported record twelve billion-dollar climactic disasters of the U.S. in 2011. You can hear in the rhetoric of Ron Paul and his followers, remarked on by leading conservative Ross Douthat. You can  read it in frightened Tea Party economic analysis. You can hear it in the serious music of today, such as Holocene, by Bon Iver, and in A.O. Scott's superb encapsulation of the film's central drama:

Is Curtis mad, or is he prescient? You can debate this question when the movie is over — the brilliant final scene invites as much — but you are unlikely to find a comfortable answer. The real question is what difference it makes...in “Take Shelter,” [Nichols] has made a perfect allegory for a panicky time. There is no shortage of delusion and paranoia out there in the world. There is also a lot to be afraid of.

Once our culture located God in the skies; now we wonder if we can trust Him -- or them. 

Climate change denial at Drudge

The day after an excellent story by Justin Gillis in the Times lays out the impact of climate change denial in the GOP re: science, the popular right-wing Drudge site headlines theastonishing number of weather-related disasters that hit the U.S. this year -- 2011: The year in extreme weather.

Included was a NASA satellite picture of Hurricane Irene, about the size of western Europe. 

For decades respected climatologists have been warning that pumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere will result in more climactic extremes. Mentions of that fact in the Drudge-linked story?

None.

Of course not --that's why he chose it. Drudge is the site that believes that a cold wave disproves climate change. Nor should we forget that this summer he linked to a denier who claimed Hurricane Irene wasn't a hurricane. Nor should we overlook the endless hating of Al Gore. 

The amplified denial is making all the more likely that we will hit 400 ppm atmospheric concentrations of CO2...by 2015, if we continue on our heedless course.   

 

When will Matt Drudge face reality?