The Earth has its own ways of cooling down

Let me begin by congratulating the station on a successful fund drive. These guys are terrific, the work they do is important.

For me it’s been three weeks since we’ve last talked, and I’m glad to be back. I’ve spent time thinking about what’s really important. A lot of what I try to do is to put things in a perspective that I hope you can use. For many of you, I’m preaching to the choir, but collectively, there is a mountain we have to move.

Some people don’t like to think about global warming, either because it’s too big a topic, or because thinking about it doesn’t make them happy. But not to think about it is to help to bring it on, to be part of the failure to force our politicians to make stopping the greenhouse effect a top priority.

Let’s understand how the earth can rebalance itself. It’s really very simple. The earth can flood, boil, infect, dehydrate and starve us to death. Have you seen people starving to death, or people dying of thirst? It’s not a pretty sight, even when it’s someone else. But an angry earth won’t spare us. Some of the changes are happening faster than predicted. And it’s not clear to me whether the changes will be gradual or catastrophic. Some of our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will be in the sights of disaster. Once the earth gets rid of most of us, the greenhouse gasses will slowly decline in the atmosphere. And then, maybe, if the hot earth doesn’t boil the atmosphere itself away, maybe the earth can begin to rebalance and cool down.

Global warming demands a BTU tax

Last night at the Egg I heard Bill McKibben talk about climate change. I was very proud of Joe and Alan and WAMC for organizing it and proud of the WAMC audience for coming out in droves to hear him. The message he brings is not a happy one but it is a message we have to hear and understand; more, it’s a message we have to act on.

Romney-Ryan Rickshaws

Both candidates say they want to pull us out of the recession and put people back to work – to create jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs, the election seems to be about jobs.

President Obama is straightforward

This is an Emergency

During the fund drive I heard Joe Donahue and this station working hard to bring Bill McKibben to this audience and lead us away from the catastrophe of global warming. He and the station did a great service and I am proud to be associated with them.

If your house was on fire you wouldn’t stand like a bystander waiting for it to collapse; you’d call the fire department and get anyone you could reach out of there fast.

If you child or your grandchild were about to drown, you would not turn your back moaning that it was too awful to contemplate; you’d raise hell to get your children out.

If your children disappeared on a camping trip, you wouldn’t sit around moaning; you’d search, call the rangers, find those children.

If your baby was dying of thirst, you’d find water. If your child was dying of hunger you’d find food. I met one six year old girl whose mother released her to others who brought her to America after the young girl’s brother had died of starvation in Liberia. It’s awful to contemplate but as parents we do what we have to in order to protect our children. 

Response to rhetoric from the Republican Convention

I have no illusion that what I say today will register over the important news that will be coming out of the Democratic Convention in North Carolina. But I want to respond to the Republican Convention and the party line the Republicans have been repeating.

Romney at the Convention told his people that “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise…is to help you and your family.” In other words Romney made fun of the single largest threat to the American way of life, coming in hurricanes, droughts, floods and the spread of serious diseases, suggesting if we didn’t already know it that the basic Republican position on the seriousness of the environmental threat is denial and ignorance.

But the basic Republican attack on Obama is that his policies have failed the economy.

Regulation and the Slide to Hell

There’s too much regulation, says Romney. Too much regulation, say some businesses. It’s always categorical, not about which regulation. Just that regulation is bad. Stop it.

The forests are burning. The drought continues. The deserts are growing. The earth is warming. The diseases are spreading. The storms are destroying our towns and farms. The glaciers are melting and the oceans are retaking our shores, submerging islands, making refugees and warriors. But oh block the regulation.

Romney’s Choice: Paul Ryan for Vice President

Mitt Romney ended the suspense with the choice of Paul Ryan for Vice-President. And what did we get? Nothing! The Ryan budget for dealing with our problems is zero – no taxes, no expenses, no government. No regulation, no protection, no help, no investment. We’re in a recession and what do we get to pull out of it – nothing, zero, nada.

Capitalism, Religion and Global Warming

Global warming is the earth’s response to unrestrained capitalism. Everybody gets to make, buy and use whatever they want without regard to how it affects the sustainability of the environment and everyone in it. Drilling in the Gulf, the Arctic or anywhere, hydrofracking in New York, Pennsylvania or anywhere, turning food like corn into oil that can be burned, all make carbon based fuels that contribute to global warming.

The growing list of minor chores that we once did with cranks, like grinding coffee, requires more power for which more carbon based fuel is burned. Planning buildings without regard to natural cooling requires maximum use of power hungry air conditioners. This is capitalist freedom to do whatever we want. And the earth is fighting back. 

The Weather

There are reports from the weather service stating this has been the worst draught in 50 years and in some place since the infamous Dustbowl of the 1930s. Worse, climatologist do not see a way out. They are describing what they call aridification of a large part of the country. And they see the conditions creating it as relatively permanent, a result of major factors, especially global warming. If any of you don’t understand the implications, I’d suggest reading or re-reading Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, the story of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. It is no exaggeration to say that aridification on that scale is terrifying. Farms were destroyed, their topsoil blown away in walls of dust that choked the lungs and made it impossible even to go outside. Farmers, their families, all those who depended on them and many who merely lived in the area became refugees in their own country, streaming onto the roads heading toward rumors of work. Many died, families were ripped apart, and many more forced into the most impoverished and demeaning existence.

The drought is in our present, not some distant future. All the harmful consequences of global warming, from aridification to extreme storms, disappearance of many forms wildlife, the movement of tropical diseases to our shores and the inundation of many lands are already beginning. The problem with things that will eventually bite us is that they eventually happen. And it is happening. Too many people have been thinking about global warming as some distant phenomenon that won’t affect them. I’ve never understood how people can casually dismiss things that will affect their children and grandchildren. Do they care? One woman I spoke to said she didn’t want to think about it because it was so awful. But not thinking about it, not taking action and not demanding action on our water supply and on global warming is becoming part of the problem.

On global warming, it is absolutely the case that if you’re not part of the solution you are part of the problem. And the stakes are huge – our lives, our children, and our country. If you are a decent person, parent, citizen, patriot, you must take action on climate change – now. If you don’t, you are letting our world, our country and our children suffer unnecessary destitution and permanent disaster.

Yes, dealing with these issues is not free. We cannot save our children and grandchildren from global warming without making any sacrifice in the short term. We have to put the lid on burning of carbon based fuels, whether from oil, coal or corn. We have to encourage people, with their pocket books, to turn to solar, wind or similarly carbon-neutral power, and to conservation.

It is time to return to John F. Kennedy’s call to serve, together, to save ourselves, our families and our country. “Ask not,” as he told us, “what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” That is a noble endeavor, and a selfish endeavor. It is the only hope, and dealing with global warming as opposed to ignoring it and hoping it will go away, is essential to be able to hold our heads high, and seek the good will of our creator.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, July 31, 2012.

Environmental liability

Let me suggest a solution to the fracking problem. The self-styled energy companies want to draw natural gas out of the shale deposits deep below the earth’s surface. Environmentalists like myself believe that fracking will foul the drinking water, damaging a much more crucial resource than the gas they’ll extract.  We also think that if gas is so valuable, they wouldn’t be burning it off where it already comes up alongside oil wells. But that’s another story. Let’s stick to safety.