North America Burning

 

Holy hell:

Intense wildfires in western Canada have sent huge plumes of smoke sweeping across North America in recent days — pollution that has been captured in images by NASA satellites, aircraft and ground-based observatories.  [snip]

As of Friday afternoon, 948 active fires were burning in Canada, including 387 considered out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. One fast-moving blaze caused widespread destruction to Jasper, a popular alpine resort town in Alberta, and forced 25,000 people to evacuate.

Large fires in the Pacific Northwest and California are polluting nearby air, as well. Over the past week, air quality alerts and advisories have been issued in Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Colorado and Wyoming. Smoky skies were also reported in North Dakota, South Dakota and across the High Plains.

Oregon has the largest active blaze in the U.S., which has been fueled by lightning, hot weather and high winds. In total, nearly 1 million acres have burned in more than 35 uncontrolled wildfires in the state.

In neighboring Idaho, fast-moving fires forced the evacuation of the entire town of Juliaetta on Thursday. More than 600 residents fled as the Gwen Fire and others burning in the region continued to spread.  [snip]

Wildfire smoke, which has spread as far east as New England and as far south as Mexico, has myriad consequences for human health.

In addition to black carbon, wildfires emit carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, various chemicals and tiny particles known as fine particulate matter into the atmosphere. Together, these materials can irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs, and exacerbate conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, COPD and chronic kidney disease.

Young children, older adults, pregnant women and people with asthma or other pre-existing respiratory conditions face the highest risk from wildfire smoke...

Hopefully, you already know what's coming next:

Although summer wildfires are not uncommon across western Canada and the U.S., scientists say that climate change is increasing the risk of these blazes by creating more favorable conditions for wildfires to start and spread. Hotter temperatures also help dry out vegetation, making it easier to burn...

When we see these fires and smoke directly impacting parts of the U.S. (eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, the Dakotas) that regularly send climate change denying Republicans to the House and Senate (not to mention the White House), we have to wonder what, if anything, it would take to get voters there to connect the dots.

(Photo:  Jasper, Alberta, Canada / Jasper National Park)

The American Climate Corps

 

 

Another good idea revived by President Biden:

President Biden on Wednesday announced an initiative to train more than 20,000 young people in skills crucial to combating climate change, such as installing solar panels, restoring coastal wetlands and retrofitting homes to be more energy-efficient.

The American Climate Corps comes as Biden seeks to win over young voters, a critical constituency, before next year’s presidential election. Polls show that climate change is a top concern for young people, who are more likely than older generations to face raging wildfires, stronger storms and rising seas in their lifetimes.

The initiative resembles a proposal that was included in an early version of Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. The Civilian Climate Corps was ultimately dropped from the final version of the legislation during private negotiations last summer between Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.).

Anything that sticks it to West Virginia's coal- promoting yachtsman is ok with us. 

The administration “will specifically be focused on making sure that folks that are coming through this program have a pathway into good-paying union jobs,” White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi said on a Tuesday call with reporters previewing the announcement. “We’re very keenly focused on that.”

Zaidi said the initiative could help train the next generation of electricians. The country faces a dire shortage of electricians, who are needed to install a host of climate-friendly technologies, including heat pumps, efficient air conditioners and electric car chargers.

Anyone interested can go to this site to sign up for information on joining the Corps. 

QOTD -- It's Hot. Politicize It!!

 

"... Worrying about the climate crisis shouldn’t be a partisan issue. But it is, at least in this country. As of last year, only 22 percent of Americans who considered themselves to be on the political right considered climate change a major threat; the left-right gap here was far larger than it was in other countries. And only in America do you see things like Texas Republicans actively trying to undermine their own state’s booming renewable energy sector.  [snip]

"So we shouldn’t expect record heat waves around the globe to end assertions that climate change, even if it’s happening, is no big deal. Nor should we expect Republicans to soften their opposition to climate action, no matter what is happening in the world.

"What this means is that if the G.O.P. wins control of the White House and Congress next year, it will almost surely try to dismantle the array of green energy subsidies enacted by the Biden administration that experts believe will lead to a major reduction in emissions.

"Like it or not, then, the weather is a political issue. And Americans should be aware that it’s one of the most important issues they’ll be voting on next November."  -- Paul Krugman, New York Times, writing on "Why We Should Politicize The Weather."  Decades of obstruction and sabotage by Republicans in service to their greedy allies and benefactors in the fossil fuel industry have led to this point.  Expecting them to change their opposition to green energy is wishcasting at its most dangerous and deluded.  Now that climate change is here with a vengeance, allowing them to escape the political consequences of their destructive policies would be absolute political malpractice by Democrats.  There's such a thing as "evil" in the world, after all, as Republicans illustrate by their actions every day.

(Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP)

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

For the second year, thousands of people marked Juneteenth by queuing outside the National Archive’s East Side Rotunda Gallery to catch a glimpse of the rarely exhibited Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3., which informed enslaved Black people in Texas of their freedom in 1865, and gave rise to the holiday.

Two of the most influential documents that discuss the freedom of enslaved Black people in the United States are so fragile that the National Archives normally keeps them in a high-security climate-controlled vault with limited light for preservation. But that could change soon. On Saturday, Colleen Shogan, the Archivist of the United States, announced a plan to display the Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3 permanently.

Shogan said they belong with other foundational documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which are on permanent display in the Charters of Freedom Rotunda at the Archives.

“It’s critically important because it’s an addition to the Charters of Freedom and helps us tell a much more comprehensive story,” she said. “It’s important for all Americans to see a reflection of themselves in American History.”

She did not give a date, saying the timing will depend on when the archivists complete their research on preservation.

A thoughtful and happy Juneteenth!

The bad:

Forecasters warned people celebrating Father's Day outdoors to take precautions as triple-digit temperatures prompted heat advisories across much of the southern U.S., triggered thunderstorms that knocked out power from Oklahoma to Mississippi and whipped up winds that raised wildfire threats in Arizona and New Mexico.

A suspected tornado struck near Scranton, Arkansas early Sunday, destroying chicken houses and toppling trees onto homes, the National Weather Service said. There were no immediate reports of serious injuries.

Meteorologists said that potentially record-breaking temperatures would continue into midweek over southern Texas and much of the Gulf Coast. Storms producing damaging winds, hail and possibly tornadoes could strike the lower Mississippi Valley.

“If you have outdoor plans this #FathersDay, don’t forget to practice heat safety! Take frequent breaks, stay hydrated, NEVER leave people/pets alone in a car!” the weather service office in Houston said on Twitter.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency for north and central parts of his state after strong winds and severe weather caused widespread power outages on Saturday. On Sunday, more than 740,000 people were without power in Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, according to PowerOutage.us...

Climate change is here with a vengeance.

The ugly:

Asylum-seekers transported from Texas to California’s capital city of Sacramento two weeks ago say they were misled by people who convinced them to travel with promises of work and shelter.

A total of 36 migrants were driven from Texas to New Mexico where they were then transported on private charter flights to California on June 2 and June 5, Eddie Carmona, director of campaigns with the non-profit PICO California, told CNN. Most of the migrants, two of whom CNN spoke to, are from Venezuela and Colombia, while a few are from Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

“We are here because they offered us a job,” one of the migrants, a 34-year-old Venezuelan man who does not want to be identified for legal reasons, told CNN. “We were deceived by the people who provided the flight service. They offered us jobs and housing.”

Investigators from the California Attorney General’s office have determined that although the migrants came from Texas, they were carrying documents purportedly from the Florida government. The papers listed Vertol Systems Company Inc. as the contractor behind the flights. CNN has obtained a signed contract showing Florida’s Division of Emergency Management hired Vertol Systems to relocate migrants in May. It’s the second time Florida’s government has worked with the contractor since the fall of 2022. [snip]

Members of the first group told authorities they were told to sign documents before they could board the plane to Sacramento, according to Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta. However, not all the migrants – who are not fluent in English – understood where they were headed and not all signed the forms, she said.

The Venezuelan migrant, who had only been in the US for a week before being transported to California on the first flight, told CNN four people approached him in a migrant shelter in El Paso, Texas, and promised if he agreed to go to California, he would be given a job and a place to live.

The migrant said the people asked him to sign paperwork in English, which he doesn’t speak. He said although he didn’t understand the document, he signed it because of what he was promised.

California is looking into whether trafficking and/ or kidnapping laws were broken and, if so, to hold those who were responsible for this outrage to account, up to and including Christofascist Texass Gov. Gregg Abbott and Florida Gov. "Bootsie" DeSantis.  If there's any justice in this country...

Pics Of The Day -- Fire And Rain

 

A very brief pictorial on what ignoring climate change is doing now and will do, to a greater extent, in the future.

 

Historic flooding in eastern Kentucky

(Charles Bertram, AP)

(Leandro Lozada/ AFP via Getty)

California wildfires

(Noah Berger, AP)

(Noah Berger, AP)

Lake Mead record low water level

(Caitlin Ochs, Reuters)

(George Rose, Getty)

Record- breaking heat here and in Europe

To borrow a quote, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

Radical SCOTUS: EPA Can't Curb Greenhouse Gases

The radical Republican Supreme Court strikes again:

The US Supreme Court restricted the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to curb greenhouse gases from power plants, siding with coal-mining companies and Republican-led states in a blow to President Joe Biden’s climate-change agenda.

The 6-3 ruling interpreting the US Clean Air Act is likely to keep the administration from imposing the type of wide-ranging emissions-cutting plan the EPA tried to put in place when Barack Obama was president. It limits the agency’s available tools amid increasing evidence that climate change is causing rising sea levels and more extreme weather patterns.

The majority said that, while the EPA can regulate power plant emissions, the agency can’t try to shift power generation away from fossil-fuel plants to cleaner sources, as Obama’s Clean Power Plan sought to do. Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts said Congress needs to speak more explicitly to give an agency that much power.  [snip]

The court’s three Democratic-appointed justices -- Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan -- dissented.

The ruling casts fresh doubt on Biden’s pledge to reduce US emissions in half by the end of decade and his goal of a carbon-free electric grid by 2035. Hitting those targets will be impossible without regulations to stifle greenhouse gases from oil wells, automobiles and power plants, as well as tax incentives designed to spur clean energy, according to several analyses. 

This ruling is a broad attack on the EPA's ability to issue regulations that have a meaningful impact on climate change, and a victory for the coal companies and polluters.  It's effect will be to make our air more unhealthy and the day of reckoning with climate change closer.  

So, to summarize two recent Republican SCOTUS decisions, clean air and saving the planet, "Bad."  Being forced to bear a rapist's baby, "Good."

(Image:  The reactionary six)

Climate Change Resisters

 

All the late night talk shows had climate change as their focus last night.  Here's Stephen Colbert's monologue on the problem, the deniers and some solutions:

When It Hits 121 Degrees... In Canada

 

 

We, our children and grandchildren are in for a world of hurt heat:

The all-time high of 121 degrees set in British Columbia on Tuesday has left weather and climate experts all over the world shocked, speechless and deeply concerned about the future of the planet.

The scorching temperature set in the village of Lytton obliterated Canada’s previous national temperature record, established before this week’s heat wave, by 8 degrees. 

Lytton, located about 60 miles northeast of Vancouver, broke that previous all-time record of 113 on three straight days, soaring to 116 on Sunday, 118 on Monday and finally 121 on Tuesday. Before this siege, it had stood since 1937.

“To break a national heat record by more than 8F over three days … words fail,” tweeted Bob Henson, a meteorologist and freelance journalist.

How really bad is it?

• It’s hotter than any temperature recorded in the Lower 48 states outside the Desert Southwest. Only four states have seen a higher temperature. It’s even 4 degrees above Las Vegas’s all-time high of 117 and just one degree from Phoenix’s all-time high of 122.
• It’s hotter than any temperature observed in Europe or South America, according to world weather records expert Maximiliano Herrera. Only 26 countries on the planet have been as hot or hotter, he wrote.
• It is the most extreme high temperature observed north of 45 degrees latitude, according to Herrera.
• It was the highest temperature in North America on Tuesday, tied with Death Valley, Calif., notorious for holding the record for the planet’s most extreme heat.
• Lytton’s average high temperature at this time of year is a mere 77 degrees, meaning Tuesday’s record high was nearly 45 degrees above normal.

Why was it so hot there, and what does it say about the future?

“Lytton was the perfect spot (in a manner of speaking) to break this record three days in a row,” Mersereau wrote. “The tiny town sits in a tight valley along the Fraser River that cuts longitudinally through the heart of British Columbia. Lytton’s low-lying location makes it an effective heat sink during a record-shattering heat wave.”

Scott Duncan, a meteorologist based in London, was flabbergasted by the record. “I didn’t think it was possible, not in my lifetime anyway,” he tweeted. “This moment will be talked about for centuries.”

But, as climate change increases the likelihood of exceptional temperatures like this, it’s only a matter of time before even more extreme records are set, replied Robert Brulle, a professor at Brown University who specializes in environmental politics and climate change.

“It won’t be talked about for centuries,” he tweeted. “These records will fall as climate change accelerates! This is just a mild version of what we can expect in the future.”

A "mild version" of what the future holds.   

Unless... 

We fight like hell to get the Biden climate change proposals in the reconciliation bill.  We need to exceed the targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction in the Paris Climate Agreement. Even then, it's hard to imagine not hitting the climate change "tipping point" that looms nearer and nearer, while so much time has been wasted by fools and fanatics.

(Photo:  Vancouver, B.C., broils/ Don Mackinnon/AFP)

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Ryan Cooper writes about how the rotted- out Republican Party is determined to take health insurance away from millions of Americans:

... If Trump wins reelection, he will very likely be able to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the Supreme Court, and that will almost certainly spell doom for the law (with this lawsuit or another one). If that happens, something like 20 million people will lose their insurance immediately — as Medicaid is drastically rolled back, the exchanges are shut down, and anybody between 18 and 25 who is still on their parents' coverage is kicked off. Protections for people with preexisting conditions would be removed, and private insurers could once again place annual and lifetime coverage limits on their policies.

The slow-motion collapse of the private health insurance system would accelerate as well, as cost-control policies designed to slow the cancerous cost bloat that is eating the American economy from the inside would be deleted. More broadly, there would be spectacular chaos within the health care system, which was totally overhauled to accommodate ObamaCare changes — and this time there will be no guiding hand from Congress.

So while there is a never-ending parade of war crimes, corruption, and general insanity from the Trump regime to distract us, let's not forget that Republicans are also gunning for your health insurance. If they can't take it away, by God they'll make it as crummy and expensive as possible.

Preserving affordable health insurance will be a key defining issue in 2020, as it was in the 2018 mid- term blue wave elections. 

Frida Ghitis thinks 2019 was a turning point in the battle for democracy in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.  But:

The pivotal contest is taking place in the United States, the country whose deep democratic roots make it well-equipped to defy the authoritarian trend. The United States remains a vigorous democracy, but it, too, is one of the nations where democracy, according to Freedom House, “has weakened significantly,” thanks in part to a president who launches incessant attacks “on the rule of law, fact-based journalism, and other principles and norms of democracy." This year, that president, Donald Trump, was impeached in a historic vote. Although the chance that legislators will remove him from office remains almost nonexistent, impeachment signaled that many Americans strongly reject his assault on democratic norms. The 2020 election will determine whether the nation that has been an icon of global freedom will shift to a democratic path or continue on the rutted road to authoritarianism, which would have ominous implications for freedom around the world.

The 2016 election was the most important election in American history in at least 80 years;  2020 will be even more important.  If affordable health insurance is a key issue, Trump's and Republicans' assault on American democracy will be the key theme.

American agriculture is experiencing a one- two punch from nitwit Donald "Rump" Trump's trade wars and climate change:

US farmers have taken a particularly harsh beating this year from a one-two punch of nasty flooding exacerbated by climate change and a trade war with China.

Severe floods spurred by record rainfall soaked the southeast and the Midwest this summer, delaying plantings of corn and soy crops. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that the 12-month period ending in May of this year was the wettest 12 months on record in the United States. (NOAA’s full climate and weather assessment for 2019 will be available in January.) Flooding on the Mississippi River this year also set records for how long it lasted in several locations.

In August, the US Department of Agriculture reported that farmers weren’t able to plant more than 19.4 million acres of cropland in 2019, the most since reporting began in 2007. Most of this area was spread across 12 states in the Midwest and Great Plains.

The late planting pushed back harvests, leaving the crops still standing vulnerable to freezing. Historic autumn rainfall then further drenched the region, leading farmers in states like Minnesota and North Dakota to abandon tens of thousands of acres of crops, including potatoes and sugar beets.

The ongoing trade war with China has also hammered crop sales. Chinese imports of US agriculture products fell by nearly 20 percent, and the Trump administration has responded with close to $28 billion in aid for farmers hurt by foreign tariffs. (The Environmental Working Group found that big, industrial-scale farms, rather than family farms, are getting the majority of those funds.)

A lot of the farmers who voted for Trump will still vote for him because he hates the same people they do;  but don't be surprised if the added chaos Trump brings to the table doesn't peel off a not- insignificant number of them.

For a more comprehensive reading list, we recommend Infidel 753's link round- up (which is where we found the story on struggles in American agriculture, above).  Always worth the visit, both for the round- up and for his other posts.

Making Life Worse, Every Day In Every Way (Cont.)

The Trump regime's assault on our environment continues apace:

The Trump administration plans this week to revoke California’s long-standing right to set stricter air pollution standards for cars and light trucks, the latest step in a broad campaign to undermine Obama-era policies aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, two senior administration officials said.

The move threatens to set in motion a massive legal battle between California and the federal government, plunge automakers into a prolonged period of uncertainty and create turmoil in the nation’s auto market. [snip]

Already, 13 states and the District of Columbia have vowed to adopt California’s standards if they diverge from the federal government’s, as have several major automakers. California leaders on Tuesday said they will fight any challenge to their autonomy.

“While the White House has abdicated its responsibility to the rest of the world on cutting emissions and fighting global warming, California has stepped up,” Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said. “It’s a move that could have devastating consequences for our kids’ health and the air we breathe, if California were to roll over. But we will not.”  (our emphasis)

While this reactionary policy undoing decades of progress may be stayed by the courts for now, the assaults won't end until these despicable vandals are kicked out on their asses. 

"Beyond The Limit": Major Parts Of The U.S. Already Crossed Climate Change Threshold

Enjoy your winters with no snow and summers in the broiler:

Over the past two decades, the 2 degrees Celsius number has emerged as a critical threshold for global warming. In the 2015 Paris accord, international leaders agreed that the world should act urgently to keep the Earth’s average temperature increases “well below” 2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100 to avoid a host of catastrophic changes.

The potential consequences are daunting. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that if Earth heats up by an average of 2 degrees Celsius, virtually all the world’s coral reefs will die; retreating ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could unleash massive sea level rise; and summertime Arctic sea ice, a shield against further warming, would begin to disappear.

But global warming does not heat the world evenly.

A Washington Post analysis of more than a century of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration temperature data across the Lower 48 states and 3,107 counties has found that major areas are nearing or have already crossed the 2-degree Celsius mark.

The Washington Post feature article is another wake- up call that'll be ignored by policymakers in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry =cough= Republicans =cough=  even at this late, and potentially irreversible, stage.  It comes on the heels of a report from the Copernicus Climate Change Service that July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, evidenced by a super hot Europe and warm Arctic (recall the video of the roaring glacier melt in Greenland earlier this month?).

Here's a map that accompanies the Washington Post feature, so you can see what parts of the country are experiencing the biggest jumps in temperature (click to enlarge):


(Source: Washington Post)

Climate change is not just a national security issue, it's a world security issue.  Rising sea levels, extreme weather, crop failures, starvation, mass population migrations, and species extinctions are just some of the effects we're likely to reap from fiddling while the Earth burns.

When the United States, at the direction of dimwit demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump, pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord to pander to the fossil fuel industry and spite President Obama, we undercut the one global achievement on climate change in the past several decades.  Now we are literally having hell to pay for having Trump and his Republican vandals doing everything they can to bring a climate apocalypse upon us and and the rest of humanity.

Climate Data: Clear Warming In Past 20 Years

As we watch the terrible, historic flooding in the plains and midwest, we are reminded again of the consequences of ignoring climate change and the increasing frequency of major catastrophic weather events on the nation. Some climate change deniers, like fossil fuel industry shill Sen. James "Snowball" Inhofe (Rethug - Oil Patch), think that because we get snow in the winter that climate change is a hoax. They can't be bothered thinking about the climate physics involved, as in, what causes water to ascend into the atmosphere from bodies of water but heat, water which then rises, cools and comes down as precipitation/snow/rain? They're too busy cashing their campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.

The Associated Press looked at climate data in the lower 48 states and found this:

"Over the past 20 years, Americans have been twice as likely to sweat through record-breaking heat rather than shiver through record-setting cold, a new Associated Press data analysis shows.

The Associated Press looked at 424 weather stations throughout the lower 48 states that had consistent temperature records since 1920 and counted how many times daily hot temperature records were tied or broken and how many daily cold records were set. In a stable climate, the numbers should be roughly equal. 

Since 1999, the ratio has been two warm records set or broken for every cold one. In 16 of the last 20 years, there have been more daily high temperature records than low." (our emphasis)

A few of the AP's findings include:

— All nine of NOAA’s climate regions have seen more hot records set than cold ones since 1999, with the West, Southwest and Northeast having a 3-to-1 ratio.

— All four seasons have had more hot records broken than cold for the same time period.

— Most decades in the 20th century had close to an even ratio of hot to cold. The 1930s, driven by Dust Bowl summers, had about 1.4 hot records for every cold. The 1960s and 1970s had about 1.5 cold records for every hot. The 21st century has a 1.9-to-1 hot-to-cold ratio.

Much like the crisis of gun violence, change won't happen until venal morons like Snowball Inhofe are voted out. We have to hope it's not too late when we do.

(image: NASA)

Assaults

The Trump Republican Party's assault on the health of our planet continues unabated:

Four Republican senators this week demanded an investigation of the National Science Foundation’s grants, accusing the federal agency of “propagandizing” by supporting a program to encourage TV meteorologists to report on climate change.  

In a letter sent to the agency’s inspector general Wednesday, the senators ― Ted Cruz (Texas), Rand Paul (Ky.) and James Lankford (Okla.) and Jim Inhofe (Okla.) ― said the $4 million Climate Matters program, which sponsors classes and webinars for meteorologists and provides real-time data and graphics with TV stations, went beyond the scope of the National Science Foundation’s mission of funding “basic research.” They urged the inspector general to probe whether the grants violated the 1939 Hatch Act, which bars government agencies from engaging in partisan activity. 

They couldn't possibly be operating out of any corrupt motive, could they?

The senators who authored the letter are among the biggest recipients of fossil fuel donations. In a ranking of all U.S. senators over the last three decades, Cruz came in third for the all-time largest total of direct contributions from oil and gas companies, receiving over $2.7 million since he took office, including during his presidential campaign, according to data collected by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Inhofe ― who infamously brought a snowball to the Senate floor as proof of climate scientists’ supposed folly ― ranked seventh, with nearly $1.9 million. Lankford ranked 16th, with $1.1 million. Paul fell well below the others at $284,328. 

Cruz is running scared this year against Democratic challenger Rep. Beto O'Rourke. Let's see if we can help Beto (and our planet) win in November, and rid us of one of these four malevolent creatures of the fossil fuel industry.

Meanwhile, Sneaker of the House Paul "Lyin'" Ryan and his merry band of Republican sociopaths and nihilists are doing what only they can do:  after cratering the deficit by passing a trillion dollar tax giveaway to corporations and the wealthy, they now see the need to address that deficit by sticking it to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security recipients:

House Republicans released a proposal Tuesday that would balance the budget in nine years — but only by making large cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare, that President Trump vowed not to touch. 

The House Budget Committee is aiming to pass the blueprint this week, but that may be as far as it goes this midterm election year. It is not clear that GOP leaders will put the document on the House floor for a vote, and even if it were to pass the House, the budget would have little impact on actual spending levels. 

Nonetheless the budget serves as an expression of Republicans’ priorities at a time of rapidly rising deficits and debt. Although the nation’s growing indebtedness has been exacerbated by the GOP’s own policy decisions — including the new tax law, which most analyses say will add at least $1 trillion to the debt — Republicans on the Budget Committee said they felt a responsibility to put the nation on a sounder fiscal trajectory.

Wow. No one could've seen this coming from this bunch of assholes! (Are we being uncivil?)

Comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted is all Republicans ever have done, are doing and will do.

Trump's Assault On The Environment, Cont.

This shouldn't bother anyone, since neo- fascist planet destroying dolt Donald "Rump" Trump says climate change is just "a Chinese hoax" anyway:

President Trump will take the most significant step yet in obliterating his predecessor’s environmental record Tuesday, instructing federal regulators to rewrite key rules curbing U.S. carbon emissions. 

The sweeping executive order also seeks to lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing and remove the requirement that federal officials consider the impact of climate change when making decisions. 

The order sends an unmistakable signal that just as President Barack Obama sought to weave climate considerations into every aspect of the federal government, Trump is hoping to rip that approach out by its roots.  (our emphasis)

Encouraging more fossil fuel extraction while removing Federal requirements for climate considerations in policy development represents the opening round in the Trump regime's efforts to roll back advances in addressing climate change and environmental quality.  Still being debated is whether the U.S. will withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, there are some legal obstacles to what the Trump regime would like to do:

The centerpiece of the new presidential directive, telling the Environmental Protection Agency to begin rewriting the 2015 regulation that limits greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, will trigger a laborious rulemaking process and a possible legal fight.

The agency must first get permission from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the rule is tied up in litigation, to revisit the matter. Then, agency officials will have to justify reaching the opposite conclusion of the Obama EPA, which argued it was technically feasible and legally warranted to reduce carbon pollution by about one-third by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. 

Keep in mind, this is all purportedly to resuscitate a coal industry that is non- competitive with other energy sources and whose only path to solvency is to shed jobs in favor of automation. It's also helpful to remember the coal industry's financial backing of Rump, and in particular the largesse of one Robert Murray of Murray Energy Corporation. Remember him?  Well, even this despicable slug admits Rump isn't bringing back coal jobs. But if he can make it easier to pollute streams and increase your profit margin, he's their guy.

This is what happens when a bankrupt ideology, in combination with a bankrupt industry, finds a morally and intellectually bankrupt dolt to do its bidding. We'll be lucky if we can limit the damage in the next 2 to 4 years.

It's Above Freezing At The North Pole; "Some Say" It's Climate Change

This got our attention:

From the top of the world to near the bottom, freakish and unprecedented weather has sent temperatures soaring across the Arctic, whipped the United Kingdom with hurricane-force winds and spawned massive flooding in South America.

The same storm that slammed the southern United States with deadly tornadoes and swamped the Midwest, causing even greater loss of life, continued on to the Arctic. Subtropical air pulled there is now sitting over Iceland, and at what should be a deeply sub-zero North Pole, temperatures on Wednesday appeared to reach the melting point — more than 50 degrees above normal. That was warmer than Chicago.  (our emphasis)

The article attempts to tease out declarations from noted climatologists Michael Mann, Jeff Masters and others that this is indicative of human- caused global climate change.  But, being scientists, they're somewhat loathe to make a definitive link without further study:

Nicola Maxey, a press officer from Britain’s national weather service, the Met Office, also noted that it is “still too early to say definitively” whether global climate change produced December’s record rainfall.

However, she added via email, “all the evidence from fundamental physics and our understanding of our weather systems suggests there may be a link.”

While "we're not scientists," we'll hazard an educated guess that THERE'S A LINK!

Administration Releases Ambitious "Clean Power Plan"

The announcement today:

The "Clean Power Plan" is the final version of regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency, which President Barack Obama called "the biggest most important step we've ever taken to combat climate change," in a video released by the White House on social media Saturday night.

Under the plan, the administration will require states to meet specific carbon emission reduction standards, based on their individual energy consumption. The plan also includes an incentive program for states to get a head start on meeting standards on early deployment of renewable energy and low-income energy efficiency.

"Power plants are the single biggest source of harmful carbon pollution that contributes to climate change," Obama said in the video. "Until now, there have been no federal limits to the amount of carbon pollution plants dump in the air."

In addition to a fact sheet, the Administration also released this video:



Meanwhile, the utilities, fossil fuel industry and big business are fighting the regulations, and naturally their contribution-loving pals in the Republican Party are urging states not to comply.  Here's a handy reference from the Natural Resources Defense Council that rebuts many of the climate change deniers' talking points.

Research Paper: Earth Could Cease To Be Safe For Humans In The Coming Decades

A paper published yesterday in the journal "Science" by 18 researchers comes to a startling conclusion:

At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings. That is the conclusion of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world. 

The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They are the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.  (our emphasis)

Here's the direct link to the "Science" paper.

Going forward, it's comforting to know knuckledraggers like Sen. James "Head-In-Hole"Inhofe (Chair, Committee on Environment & Public Works), Sen. "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz (Chair, Subcommittee on NASA), and Sen. Marco "Glug Glug" Rubio (Chair, Subcommittee on Oceans and Atmosphere) are only the tip of the (fast-melting) iceberg of climate- change- denying loons now in charge in Congress, isn't it?

(Thanks again to Democrats who couldn't be bothered to get up off their asses and vote in November.)

UPDATE:  The hottest year since records have been kept?  2014.

Monday Reading - Carrying The Fight To The Republican Vandals

A couple of good reads on the struggle between the Republican vandals and people who want government to work (as usual, please read the entire pieces).

Charles Blow on why government is "broken" and who's breaking it:

Congressional Republicans have been sent to Washington with a mandate not so much to conduct business but rather to collect a bounty, to do what they promised and what their supporters expect: Stop Obama at any cost and at every turn, to erase his name or at least put an asterisk by it.

Blow concludes with this observation about the Republican/ plutocrat master plan:

Liberal ideology depends on a productive federal government; conservatism rises when that government is crippled. 

Republicans, in all their cynicism, are increasing their efforts to break the government. 

Isn’t America great?

E.J. Dionne, Jr., on the Democratic push-back that's already started on net neutrality, climate change and immigration:

Republicans did a brilliant job in the campaign playing on the idea that Obama is weak, passive and without a game plan. That was the not-so-hidden meaning of all their television ads about the Islamic State, Ebola and immigration. So Obama has made clear that he won’t be weak and passive and that he has a game plan. 

But what of the hand-wringing by the usual suspects to this continuing "partisanship"? Dionne:

Yes, Washington may again be engulfed in partisan warfare. But at least this time, it will be over things that are actually happening.  (our emphasis) 

And, we might add, things that are actually worth fighting for.

Today's Cartoons - Climate Change Edition

(click to enlarge)

(Steve Benson, The Arizona Republic)

(Mike Luckovich, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

"Zombie Lies:" Republican Lies That Refuse To Die

Bill Maher on Republican lies that refuse to die ("like a plastic bag in a tree"):