Tag Archives: Global warming

environmental news, International news

This isn’t how you ‘make America great … again’

Donald J. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” now means that the United States of America will sit on the sidelines while the rest of the world wages war against climate change.

This isn’t surprising. Neither is it acceptable in any form or fashion.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/climate-pact-pullout-rewards-the-few-and-powerful/ar-BBBNixu?li=BBnb7Kz

The president today announced his decision to pull out of the Paris Accords, which aligns more than 190 nations in the fight against climate change.

It isn’t, as opponents have contended, a top-down edict forcing nations to adhere to some sort of global mandate. The agreement, hammered out among the participating nations, allows for individual countries to adapt to policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions and scale back on the myriad causes of climate change and, yes, the warming climate.

Scientists around the world have concluded that human activity has played a major role in the changing climate. The Paris Accords are meant to bring nations together to hold humans accountable for their actions.

The United States is the big dog on the planet. We are the greatest nation on Earth and we need a place at the world’s table.

The president today just pushed us away from that table. Why? To satisfy the electoral base that help elect him.

This is a sad day for those of us who are concerned about the fate of the world.

This isn’t how the greatest nation in that world is supposed to lead it.

environmental news

EPA boss leaves big footprint at his agency

Scott Pruitt has wasted little time in making his imprint on the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA director has ordered the removal of the “climate change” link on the agency’s website. That’s right. There’s no mention now of the planet’s changing climate, apparently because Pruitt doesn’t believe it’s occurring, or that it’s somehow part of nature’s cycle that cannot be manipulated by human activity.

This is a clear and present danger to our world.

EPA no longer in the “protection” business?

The EPA was created during the Nixon administration in 1970 to do as its title says clearly: to “protect the environment.” Pruitt, though, is a former Oklahoma state attorney general who made quite a bit of noise suing the EPA multiple times for the rules and regulations it imposes on businesses in its effort to do as its title says.

Pruitt acts as if he is no friend of the environment, although he surely declares that he is.

Why remove the link on the EPA website?

“We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law,” J.P. Freire, the EPA’s associate administrator for public affairs, said in a statement.

The timing of its removal also is a bit ironic. It came just before this weekend’s series of marches regarding the climate.

I know it’s weird to be talking about climate change/global warming on a day when snow is falling in late April on the High Plains of Texas. This kind of weather anomaly gives grist to climate change deniers who no doubt are relishing the very notion of snowfall so late into spring.

Yes, Mr. Administrator, the climate is changing

Of course, the deniers ignore the findings and the theories of a vast majority of scientists and other environmental experts who contend that human activity has contributed greatly to the warming of the planet. Deforestation and carbon emissions created by burning of fossil fuels has been labeled as the cause.

Polar ice caps are shrinking, sea levels are rising, worldwide average temperatures are increasing. Is the planet in peril?

We can discuss the cause of the changing climate. I’m open to that. What I find discouraging — and shameful — is the elimination of source material from the EPA’s website that allows that discussion to occur.

environmental news

Let us cherish the only Earth we have

Is it me or is Planet Earth going to get some major disrespect from the current president of the United States?

I ask because Earth Day is upon us. We commemorate our home planet with marches, speeches and occasionally fiery rhetoric from activists who proclaim the need to take care of our home.

Many of us take these exhortations seriously. Many others don’t.

I fear that one of those who don’t now resides in the White House. The 45th president of the United States, Donald John Trump, has said some pretty hideous things about some of the environmental crises facing this planet of ours.

The worst of those things has been to declare climate change to be  “hoax” promoted by our trading foes in the People’s Republic of China.

I have written about Earth Day previously in this blog. Here is this past year’s entry:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/04/happy-earth-day/

Trump has assembled a Cabinet that includes an Environmental Protection Agency director, Scott Pruitt, who shares the president’s denial of climate change. Pruitt has sued the federal government multiple times dating back to when he served as Oklahoma attorney general.

Indeed, the EPA’s very mission is spelled out explicitly in its title: to “protect” the environment.

What did the president do shortly after taking office? He signed an executive order that rolls back regulations that sought to clean the air. Trump contends that the rules and regulations are “job killers” and he vows to do all he can to restore jobs for heavy industry.

At what cost? To pour pollutants into the air, which well could create hazardous living conditions for millions of Americans?

I remain committed to the idea that climate change is real and that human beings are playing a major role in creating the havoc that’s occurring around the world.

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. This is the only Earth we have. We must cherish it. Protect it. Love it.

This terrestrial affection must exist far beyond a single day.

environmental news

Thanks be to Mad Dog for sounding rational

That did it.

It’s official. James “Mad Dog” Mattis is my favorite member of Donald J. Trump’s Cabinet.

The secretary of defense has spoken in direct contradiction to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and the president of the United States by declaring — be sure you’re sitting down — that climate change is real and it presents a threat to our national security.

Who would have thought that a retired Marine general with the nickname of “Mad Dog” would emerge as the premier grownup in the new president’s Cabinet.

Here’s part of what Mattis said, according to the Huffington Post: “Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today,” Mattis said in written answers to questions posed after the public hearing by Democratic members of the committee. “It is appropriate for the Combatant Commands to incorporate drivers of instability that impact the security environment in their areas into their planning.”

Trump has said climate change is a hoax perpetrated by “the Chinese.” The EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has sued the EPA more than a dozen times and has called for its elimination. He has expressed openly his belief that climate change is not real, joining a paltry list of climate change deniers.

Now we have a defense secretary making sense. He calls climate change a national threat. His remarks well might reveal fissures within the Trump administration. As the Huffington Post reports: “These remarks and others in the replies to senators could be a fresh indication of divisions or uncertainty within President Donald Trump’s administration over how to balance the president’s desire to keep campaign pledges to kill Obama-era climate policies with the need to engage constructively with allies for whom climate has become a vital security issue.”

Semper fi, Gen. Mattis.

environmental news, national news

Trump finds religion on climate change?

rtr_al_gore_jc_150813_16x9_992

I thought Donald J. Trump called the issue of climate change a “hoax” promoted by China as a way to harm U.S. industries.

Isn’t that what he said while campaigning for president of the United States?

OK. He did say that.

Why, then, did he and his daughter Ivanka meet with former Vice President Al Gore today? Gore’s signature issue is — yep — climate change. He’s written books about it. He has delivered countless lectures about how he believes human beings have contributed greatly the changing climate around the world. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the subject.

Gore also has taken more than his share of ridicule from political conservatives who debunk the notion he puts forth and which has been supported by the vast majority of scientists worldwide.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/12/al-gore-trump-meeting-232203

Gore was quite circumspect when talking to reporters after the meeting. He revealed next to nothing about what they discussed.

My guess? Gore talked to the president-elect about climate change and sought to persuade him that it is far from a hoax.

environmental news, national news, religious news

Why not debate climate change in public schools?

books

As a believer in the view that human beings are contributing to Earth’s changing climate, it causes me some pain to say the following.

I believe the Portland Public Schools system has made a mistake in banning texts that question the causes of climate change.

Oregon’s largest public school district has issued a directive that bans texts that cast doubt on what many scientists have said: that human activity has created a global warming crisis that threatens the planet’s ecosystem.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-05-20/portland-public-schools-ban-educational-materials-denying-climate-change?src=usn_fb

I grew up in suburban Portland, Ore., so this decision strikes me close to my heart. I attended Portland schools until the seventh grade; my parents moved us to the ‘burbs in East Multnomah County in 1962.

I have long feared that human activity — deforestation and the emission of carbon gases into the atmosphere — have contributed to the changing climate. Did you see the latest report that said April was the 12th consecutive month of record temperatures worldwide?

That doesn’t mean, though, that we cannot allow our students access to those who doubt the results of such activity.

This isn’t even close to the same thing as teaching the biblical version of Earth’s creation alongside Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory. One theory is based on a faith-based belief; the other is based on science. Teach the scientific theory in public schools and teach other in church.

Climate change and its causes, though, seems to be fair game for an open discussion in our public schools.

The Portland school system has slammed the door on those who have raised legitimate concerns about the notion that Earth’s climate is changing and that humans are the primary cause of that change.

Do I accept those concerns? No. That doesn’t mean they’re coming from crackpots.

The students would do well to be exposed to competing ideas on this important global issue.

 

environmental news

Why is cutting carbon emissions so bad?

banner_emissions

President Barack Obama is singing high praise for the worldwide climate deal brokered in Paris this past week.

No surprise there, right? The president believes, as many of us out here do — me included — that human activity has contributed to the worsening of our worldwide environment.

However, you know what? I’m not going to debate that point. Skeptics of the climate change crisis have their minds made up; those of us on the other side have made up our minds, too.

So, we’ll go on with the rest of the discussion.

The agreement calls for reducing carbon emissions, those pollutants that come from fossil fuels. They increase carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and create a gradual warming of the atmosphere.

Beyond that, though, why is it a bad thing — as some interested parties contend — to cut those fossil fuel emissions.

This deal, they say, is “no better” than the Kyoto Protocol worked out during the Clinton administration in 1997. It never was ratified by Congress. President George W. Bush, Bill Clinton’s successor, said the agreement would cost American jobs and would give emerging powers — such as China and India — a free pass.

I keep coming back to the notion, though, that reductions in these emissions — which are indisputably harmful to Earth’s ecosystem — will produce a net positive impact on the future of the planet.

We can conserve those fossil fuels, which are a finite resource. We can invest in alternative energy sources, such as wind, solar and — yes! — nuclear power.

As Politico reports as well, there was some water down of the language in the agreement, which initially stipulated that developed nations “shall” cut those greenhouse gases; Secretary of State John Kerry got the conferees to change that language to “should” with the hope it would stand a better chance of being ratified by the Republican-controlled Congress.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/paris-climate-talks-tic-toc-216721

Shall or should? Whatever.

The goal remains the same: to reduce greenhouse gases that harm the only planet we have.

How can that be a bad thing?

 

environmental news

Big storm makes me think: climate change

climate-change

Hurricane Patricia roared ashore on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.

It brought immense wind and an enormous amount of rain. The rain has swept across much of Texas, flooding areas of the southern and eastern parts of the state.

One of my thoughts as I looked from afar at this unfolding misery? Climate change.

I do not know if this storm by itself is a result of the changing climate across Planet Earth. I am quite certain, though, that its ferocity is going to spark more discussion — and yes, even angry debate — about whether the planet’s climate is changing and whether humankind has played a major role in that event.

We’ll let the debate commence.

I just want to weigh in, though, with this thought.

The climate change deniers in public office and even those out here among us unwashed masses keep seeking to debunk the theories put forth by those who believe the planet is warming up and that human activity has played a role.  Their argument? Those who believe such things “aren’t scientists,” they say. They ridicule esteemed individuals, such as Pope Francis, in that category.

Actually, the Holy Father is a scientist, with a background in chemistry. Aww, that’s not a relevant area of expertise, the deniers keep saying. Well, OK. But the pope and others have based their arguments with findings and data compiled by actual scientists who have concluded that human activity is related directly to the changing climate on our planet.

My best response to all of that, though, is that the deniers to whom I refer aren’t scientists, either. Yes, they too present data from scientists who agree with their view that human beings’ abuse of Earth hasn’t contributed to the changing climate.

So, which non-expert do you choose to believe?

I tend to side with those who fear that Earth’s climate is changing and that we human beings have played a significant role in bringing it about.

 

environmental news

Christie on climate change: It’s real

What gives with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie? Doesn’t he want to be the Republican nominee for president in 2016?

He’s traipsing through New Hampshire saying some things that are sure to fire up the GOP base against a potential Christie presidential candidacy.

He’s saying, well, that climate change cannot be denied and, what’s more, that human beings are a contributing factor to the world’s changing climate.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/241495-chris-christie-global-warming-is-real

The planet is heating up, Christie says, and we need to get busy trying to minimize the impact that human activity has on this phenomenon.

Look, his own state was hammered in October 2012 by Superstorm/Hurricane Sandy, which weather experts said was such an anomaly that they blamed climate change on that event when it happened. It wiped out coastal communities in New York and New Jersey.

Christie has changed his tune on climate change. He once opposed regional efforts to cut greenhouse gases. Then he vowed to eliminate coal-fired power plants from his state.

Yes, this climate change issue has sparked vigorous debate. Those who deny it’s happening — including influential U.S. senators, such as Republican Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma — push back by saying that science hasn’t  yet concluded that human beings are a factor in climate change … if it’s actually occurring.

Others, though, say science is on their side, that temperatures are rising, ice caps are melting, weather patterns are changing and that human beings play a significant role — through deforestation and carbon emissions — in creating those changes.

Now we can welcome a potential leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

Thanks, Gov. Christie, for changing your mind.

 

environmental news

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

So help me, I wish Earth Day was a bigger deal than it has become.

For a whole day — as if that’s enough time to honor the only planet we have — we’re supposed to put Earth on the top of our mind’s awareness.

Homepage

This is the 45th annual Earth Day. Many communities around the world are going to have public events to commemorate the day. That’s fine. I welcome all the attention that will be paid to Earth until the sun comes up tomorrow.

Given that it was created 45 years ago, that means Earth Day began during the Nixon administration. I doubt President Nixon really paid a lot of personal attention to the condition of the planet, but I certainly applaud that it was during his years in the White House that the Environmental Protection Agency was created.

In the decades since Earth Day’s creation, though, it has become something of a political flashpoint.

Some of us believe the planet is in peril. Our climate is changing and yet humankind keeps doing things to the planet that exacerbate the change that’s occurring. Deforestation is one thing. Spewing of carbon-based emissions is another. Some of say we need to do a better job of protecting our planet — or else face the consequences, which are as grim as it gets. Hey, we have nowhere else to live — for the time being, at least.

Others of us say there’s little we can do. Climate change? It’s part of Earth’s ecological cycle. We need to accept the inevitable and not seek to destroy our industrial base to chase after a cause that is far too big for mere human beings to tackle.

I won’t accept the hard-core climate change deniers’ thesis.

For the time being, I am at least grateful that the world sets aside a day to honor the good Planet Earth.

We ought to do it every day of every year.