Climate Talk And The Dems

@ZachandMattShow is the answer to the #YangMediaBlackout

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) September 6, 2019

Planting Trees

Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the biggest and cheapest way to tackle the climate crisis

a worldwide planting programme could remove two-thirds of all the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human activities ....... there are 1.7bn hectares of treeless land on which 1.2tn native tree saplings would naturally grow. That area is about 11% of all land and equivalent to the size of the US and China combined...... specifically excluded all fields used to grow crops and urban areas from their analysis ....... “This new quantitative evaluation shows [forest] restoration isn’t just one of our climate change solutions, it is overwhelmingly the top one” ...... the forest restoration envisaged would take 50-100 years to have its full effect of removing 200bn tonnes of carbon...... tree planting is “a climate change solution that doesn’t require President Trump to immediately start believing in climate change ....... “It is available now, it is the cheapest one possible and every one of us can get involved.” ...... “Finally we have an authoritative assessment of how much land we can and should cover with trees without impinging on food production or living areas. This is hugely important blueprint for governments and private sector.” ........ “The most effective projects are doing restoration for 30 US cents a tree. That means we could restore the 1tn trees for $300bn ....... by far the cheapest solution that has ever been proposed ...... $300bn would be within reach of a coalition of billionaire philanthropists and the public....... you get by far your biggest bang for your buck in the tropics [where canopy cover is 100% ......... The world’s six biggest nations, Russia, Canada, China, the US, Brazil and Australia, contain half the potential restoration sites. ........ The research is based on the measurement of the tree cover by hundreds of people in 80,000 high-resolution satellite images from Google Earth. Artificial intelligence computing then combined this data with 10 key soil, topography and climate factors to create a global map of where trees could grow....... many studies suggest sheep and cattle do better if there are a few trees in the field........ there are currently about 3tn trees in the world, which is about half the number that existed before the rise of human civilisation. “We still have a net loss of about 10bn trees a year

Planting a Trillion Trees May Be the Best Way to Fight Climate Change, Study Says Even with existing cities and farmland, there’s enough space for new trees to cover 3.5 million square miles (9 million square kilometers) .... That area is roughly the size of the United States...... over the decades, those new trees could suck up nearly 830 billion tons (750 billion metric tons) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That’s about as much carbon pollution as humans have spewed in the past 25 years. Much of that benefit will come quickly because trees remove more carbon from the air when they are younger ....... “This is by far — by thousands of times — the cheapest climate change solution” and the most effective ........ Six nations with the most room for new trees are Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil and China. ....... “None of this works without emissions cuts”

You should take a lead on this and do something, Marc. Perhaps create a non-profit, get billionaires to donate. A Charity Water for tree planting worldwide. https://t.co/g0k6QyIjk4

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) August 28, 2019

Brexit, Aexit, And Trump

Brexit is easier to look at for Americans because the distance the pond offers gives you perspective. The trade war is Donald Trump attempting Brexit for America. Is it possible for the British economy to disengage from the larger European economy? It is the largest market in the world. Is it possible for the American economy to disengage from the Chinese economy? Just like Brexit seemed to have bipartisan support in London, looks like Trump's moves enjoy bipartisan support in Washington DC.

I think the short answer is the attempted disengagement is not possible. You can try and create a lot of political drama. But the disengagement will not happen. The supply chains of the world have become so enormously complex. Country A exports item M to Country B, which uses item M to produce item N which it exports to Country A, and that back and forth goes five times, six times, 10 times. How do you disengage?

50 years ago the Chinese read the Chinese newspapers, the Americans read the American newspapers. Today Donald Trump's facial expressions are transmitted in real time to all world as he makes small talk with Abe or Xi. And they get archived for anyone else to see on their own time. In this information-rich environment, you can bluff but you will get seen.

I don't believe Trump cares for the cause of democracy. His relentless verbal attacks on media in the US is a hint. He has openly asked for violence in the streets.

I believe he is a demagogue who misleads his people. He taps into the anger from the lost manufacturing base and channels blame on the Mexican and the Chinese. He does not have a solution. The trade war is just a bigger version of the border wall theatrics. He promised he will get those manufacturing jobs back and he wants to be seen trying. Look, I did try to build the wall. Look, I did put the pressure on the Chinese.

The smart thing to do would be to face the facts of the massive transition that is underway. Evidence-based decision making will lead to a realization this transition need not be painful and it can be good news.

The smart thing to do is to face the facts of climate change and inequality. Both are existential.

A Truly Global Universal Basic Income

The global GDP stands at around 90 trillion dollars. The total wealth in the world stands at 280 trillion. There are eight billion people in the world.

If you were to install a Universal Basic Income for every person on earth of $100 per month, the cost comes to 800 billion dollars per month or almost 10 trillion per year. That is not a small sum. A 3% wealth tax would pay for it. Considering much of that 10 trillion would be spent, that would lead to a rise in GDP, wealth and income. The rich might harvest it all back. So the 3% tax would be a great investment.

But this would require a world government, a biometric ID for everyone on earth, fast broadband everywhere on earth, and universal access to digital money.

The US should also follow Modi's lead and announce demonetization. That would bankrupt numerous illicit organizations.

This 3% wealth tax is of existential importance. Too much inequality is like climate change. It will lead to collapse.

A Truly Global Universal Basic Income https://t.co/W6q6BD0c1Q @KamalaHarris @BetoORourke @AndrewYang @TulsiGabbard @AOC @PeteButtigieg @PrashantKishor @kanhaiyakumar

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) April 8, 2019

AOC @ SXSW

The emergence of AOC is existential. Climate change is existential. Inequality is existential. Both lead civilizational ends. But AOC has a plan to combat both.

Can AOC Get Young People To Vote?

Could AOC inspire the 18-28 crowd to vote in the same ratio as the 60-80 crowd? That is the question. Could AOC inspire that crowd to run for office in similar proportions? There are all kinds of offices to run for. There are numerous offices at the local level that do not ask you to quit your day time job.

AOC's challenge is not what committee assignment she can get herself in Congress. It is what she can inspire at the grassroots level nationally and globally. The digital natives have to come out in full force. The generation for whom climate change is existential has to take the lead on doing something about it.

I believe AOC has the option to take the Green New Deal idea to the Netroots Nation, and I don't mean the organization. I mean the digital native crowd who have never not known the Internet. Done right the Green New Deal becomes centerpiece legislation no matter which Democrat gets elected president in 2020. Senator Elizabeth Sanders has already endorsed it. And many say she is the frontrunner. She also leans towards the same end of the political spectrum as AOC.

AOC represents a paradigm shift in politics. America saw its greatest phase of prosperity when the top tax rate was indeed in the 70% range. And America was still called capitalism then. And back then, in the heat of the Cold War, pun intended, capitalism was not just an economic system, it was also a political ideology. It was life or death on the nuclear tip.

The Green New Deal will not get enacted over the next two years. So fighting for some kind of a congressional committee is a losing proposition. But that fight can be used to go to the netroots nation. See, the Congress is not responding, not at scale, not at speed. Get involved. Shape the 2020 agenda.

The Green New Deal is not one thing you do. Just like the New Deal after which it is named, it is sweeping. It is a fundamental realignment.

Yes! @esglaude has it exactly right on @AOC, @sunrisemvmt, and @justicedems proposal for a #GreenNewDeal.

"Since Reagan, we've had a policy landscape emphasizing deregulation, cutting corporate taxes, eroding the social safety net.

We are witnessing a shift in that landscape." pic.twitter.com/FCHMe1jb2Z

— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) January 8, 2019

This is not about let's create a Facebook group. This is not about, can we get more Twitter followers. New digital tools are needed. This is about building an actual organization with local chapters, and locally elected leadership. This is about a political organization that raises funds. Somebody is going to have to pay for AOC's travels. Let a PAC do that. This is about crowdsourcing the drafting of actual legislation. How do you get a million people (at least) to take part in the drafting of legislation? And it has to feel meaningful. I myself am not clear how. The Green New Deal will not be drafted by a committee Speaker Pelosi agrees to. The Green New Deal rough draft will be crafted by a million members of the netroots nation.

Building an organization .... I am thinking, how about Green New Deal Nation for a name? GNDN. The short form sounds right on the lips. It will have to create its own software. That is not a big challenge. Anyone can sign up. You sign up with your email address, phone number, name, and zip code. Basic stuff. It is both a website and a mobile app. Then the software organizes you by zip code, 10 people to a group. The 10 closest people to each other, geographically speaking, form the basic group. Anything larger and people run the danger of not getting heard. You insert your address, and that finds you the group closest to you. The group is a monthly house party. But even on the website and in the app, each individual has the option to start solo. There is a form you fill out where you say what are the political and economic goals that are most important to you. As that moves from one person to a 10 person group, the leader of the group brings it all together. It starts with a list of all that team members want. Then the team votes, so there is a priority list as a second step. And it keeps going up. 10-10-10-10 could keep happening. As a second step, 10 team leaders come together, if not in person, then virtually. And so on. That is a bottom-up thing that must happen.

And then there is a shopping mall concept. The top thinkers in the Green New Deal camp (and many might be academics) make the best case they can make to throw out ideas. The netroots goes shopping among those ideas. These are ideas that have been thought through in terms of technology, in terms of budget numbers, and so on.

You don't need 10 years to build a think tank. You need a split second.

The thing is, this is a cost-effective path. Most people might not have to go any further than their nearby house party. Let the average donation be a glorious $5. Skip the coffee. Donate instead.

This done for a year will make the Green New Deal the centerpiece legislation for any Democrat who might end up in the White House in 2020.

Once Green New Deal 1.0 has been drafted, going back and forth between the netroots and the leadership and the shopping mall of thought leaders, then the leadership has to take it back to the netroots. You participated in the crafting of it, now sell it to the population at large. Canvass. Vote.

And there you have it. Momentum.

That conversation is the democracy. Google is not just some small town library gone digital. People ask Google questions that were never even asked. And on any given day, one third of search queries on Google are new.

This digital conversation will be unprecedented. It just has not been done before.

When you yourself are drafting legislation, that leaves little room for apathy.

AOC is the natural leader of the GNDN.

Rep @AOC needs a GNDN, a brand new netroots organization. https://t.co/dwlfkZaIjP @_waleedshahid @SenWarren @SenKamalaHarris @SenSanders @justicedems @saikatc The 2020 agenda has to be captured. #2020 #GreenNewDeal #greennewdealnation pic.twitter.com/GRPZTj2Qhx

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) January 9, 2019

The Geometry Of The Green Deal

The ambitious #GreenNewDeal is being championed by politicians like @AOC, but what exactly is it?

The massive program of investments in clean-energy jobs and infrastructure, would transform not just the energy sector, but the entire economy. https://t.co/NIyGtoNKke

— Vox (@voxdotcom) January 7, 2019

The term Green New Deal might have a long tail, but the credit of finally putting it on the political map goes to AOC. She is politically gifted. No doubt this honeymoon period will come to an end, and she will face her eventual backlash. But she is no flash in the pan. She is potential presidential material.

It is Green Deal or bust. Climate change is for real. The consequences of not doing anything are dire. There is a cliff ahead. There is a point of no return. Global warming is not just all is same, it is just a little bit warmer. Wouldn't that be nice? Global warming is meteorological chaos. It is the monsoon deciding to leave the Indian subcontinent and popping up at some random landmass every year. Agriculture as we know it requires predictable weather. Global warming in its extreme messes up the predictability.

It's not AOC. It's the planet. The planet needs it. Bad.

@_waleedshahid The Geometry Of The Green Deal https://t.co/k4kYHOsOzV #alexandriaocasiocortez #aoc #climatechange #globalwarming @AOC @KamalaHarris @SenWarren @justicedems

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) January 8, 2019

@_waleedshahid The Geometry Of The Green Deal https://t.co/k4kYHOsOzV #alexandriaocasiocortez #aoc #climatechange #globalwarming @AOC @KamalaHarris @SenWarren @justicedems

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) January 8, 2019

The Civil War made Lincoln. The Great Depression and World War II made FDR. Global Warming will make AOC.

The 13 figures that get thrown into any talk of a Green Deal are surprisingly good economics. Post Green Deal America will see prosperity that will make the 2018 prosperity feel like America had been Haiti.

And it will be just prosperity. If you think about it, Social Security was outlandish considering it was preceded by, well, nothing like it. The post-Green Deal similarly will have a floor for all called the Universal Basic Income.

People go wow about the Internet. There are 10 Internet size technologies right around the corner. If you do the Green Deal right, you take the world into an Age Of Abundance. The productivity gains projected by the technologies right round the corner will make the idea of a Universal Basic Income as a matter of fact as minimum wage is today. Can't do without it. The wheels of the economy will not budge without it.

The projected gains in clean energy efficiencies over the coming decade are such that dirty energy sources stand no chance. But the political arm has to do its part. That's where the Green Deal comes in.

The America of tomorrow is young and browning. AOC represents that America.

The worst possible thing AOC could do politically is to try to climb the ladders of the US House. She needs to go national, and possibly global, digitally. And this is not just about having more Twitter and Instagram followers, impressive as her numbers are. This is about an actual organization, only it is primarily digital. It will have donors, it will have local chapters, it will self-elect its local leaders, it will host house parties. It will crowdcraft the writing of the actual legislation. And, no, it's not mobocracy. The academics who have done their work will get their say.

That way even if it is a Warren-Harris White House in 2020, the Green Deal still goes through, and AOC still plays the decisive role, and perhaps she gets to do Green Deal 2.0 when she gets into the White House in 2028. Just like Obamacare is in dire need of a 2.0 because 1.0 still left too many uninsured.

AOC already has more Twitter followers than potential presidential candidates. pic.twitter.com/khbtFFDXh9

— Dean Steitz (@theminorchords) January 8, 2019

I love how you're now receiving more attention then Frump! And someone with a plan:) Keep it up cause were paying attention!

— Iclimbrocks (@Iclimbrocks2) January 8, 2019

Hate @AOC all you want, but if she runs for president, she would have more political experience than Donald Trump did.

— princesa❃ (@_findingalexis) January 8, 2019

100 years after America recognized women’s right to vote, the 116th Congress will have more than 100 women in the House for the first time – including our 91 Democratic women! #AWomansPlaceIsInTheHouse pic.twitter.com/1TVt4L1VGt

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 8, 2019

This @CoreyRobin post on @AOC gets right to the point: "And just like that, everyone's talking about raising the top tax rate to 70%. That's called shaping the conversation. That's called seizing the agenda. That's called leadership." pic.twitter.com/5igzOXTons

— Daniel Denvir (@DanielDenvir) January 5, 2019

.@AOC isn't fearless. It's because she HAS fear that her courage is so impressive. The leadership she's showing is unbelievably difficult. I see it every day. I see the toll it takes. And I can't believe my eyes when she gets up and just does it again. https://t.co/gb2s8OTxxL

— Saikat Chakrabarti (@saikatc) January 6, 2019

“At least she’ll fight.”

I can't think of a better place to base the multi-racial working class revolution of our generation than the Bronx and Queens. ✊🏾https://t.co/zESLJcqXBP

— Saikat Chakrabarti (@saikatc) January 6, 2019

Trump is, as we speak, telling a series of easily refutable, xenophobic lies to the American people. That does not seem to make people in the elite press as angry as calling him a motherfucker does. I do not understand that hierarchy of values.

— David Roberts (@drvox) January 4, 2019

We make a mistake when we think of climate change as one of many political issues.

It isn’t. It’s the whole thing.

Our planet is our only home.

If we don’t limit further harm, alter our behavior and develop resilience as the climate changes, we doom our species.

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 29, 2018

The Geometry Of The Green Deal https://t.co/99o1ZLvP7F @RashidaTlaib @IlhanMN @saikatc @justicedems @aoc @_waleedshahid

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) January 8, 2019

Dirty Energy Will Have To Be Beat On Price

The solar energy industry has to innovate so hard and so fast (the solar energy Moore's Law?) with prices coming down by half every two years that dirty energy is simply priced out globally.

That is the best way forward.

The planet can not be hostage to whether or not a White House occupant will try to walk away from the Paris Agreement.

The political people though should agitate to end all the subsidies to dirty energy. There is too much corporate welfare going on.

On Trade, Immigration And Climate

Trump might feel he now has a mandate, but his positions have not been endorsed by the world. In fact on each issue the world will oppose him every step of the way and the world will win. For one, truth is on their side. Two, America is not the power it was when Trump was a college kid. America after the Trump victory is like Britain after World War II. The empire is gone.

And the racist Alt Right ideology is anathema to the powers that oppose him on the big issues. Precisely when Europe and America need to make the extra effort to get along with the world there are voices that have taken to white supremacist thinking with renewed vigor. It is a grand losing proposition.

Europe will lock horns with Trump on climate. France has already threatened a carbon tax on all American imports should Trump walk away from the Paris Climate Agreement.

China has become the leading voice on the climate issue. Whichever country is the leading voice on climate change is the leader of the world. For there is no bigger issue the planet faces.

Should the trade war Trump has threatened with China materialize America, and perhaps the world, will experience a Great Depression when the central banks of the world are in no position to help out. 2008 and 2009 will feel like a picnic.

Brexit is easy to vote for but hard (read: impossible) to implement. The Brits are finding that out the hard way. The genie of globalization is out of the bottle. It can not be put back. Trump campaigned wanting to make America great again. But in actuality he might only hasten America's slide from its number one position in the world.

The Republicans have policy clarity only on issues that are all gut punches to the poor whites across America. "The poorly educated," as Donald Trump fondly calls them, might have been royally duped. They might lose not only Obamacare but also Medicare. Yes, costs have been rising under Obamacare, but they were rising even faster before Obamacare. And not even losing Medicare is as scary a proposition as a Great Depression.

Ends up racism is a really, really stupid ideology. Today it is self destructive to the whites. Racism is sin. Sexism is sin. God does not take kindly to either.

Trump’s fifth bankruptcy might be a country, not a company.    

China Now Leads, On Trade Plus Climate

if Trump slapped China with heavy tariffs it would “paralyze” bilateral trade.

“When the time comes, large orders for Boeing planes would switch to Europe, U.S. auto sales in China would face setbacks, Apple phones would essentially be crowded out, and U.S. soybeans and corn would be eradicated from China,” the paper said in a commentary.

“Trump, coming from a business background, is very astute. We do not believe he will treat China-U.S. trade so childishly.”

China has signaled it will promote plans for regional trade integration, vowing to seek support for a Beijing-backed Asia-Pacific free trade area at a summit in Peru later this month, after Trump’s win dashed hopes for the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Irresponsible, Bigly

Trump looking at fast ways to quit global climate deal: source

I can't think of a faster way for America to relinquish its leadership position in the world than by walking away from the dire science of climate change.

Climate Change To Climate Catastrophe?

What About the Planet?

It’s time to end the blackout on climate change as an issue. It needs to be front and center — and questions must be accompanied by real-time fact-checking, not relegated to the limbo of he-said-she-said, because this is one of the issues where the truth often gets lost in a blizzard of lies.

The Biggest Fallacy In American Democracy

The biggest fallacy in American democracy is that America is going to wait until every country on earth has become a democracy, and since that might not happen for a while, America is going to fight the idea of a world government tooth and nail.

Except now America's hand is being forced. The world's hand is being forced. Planet earth is Titanic, headed straight for an iceberg right now.

On a phenomenon as complex as climate and weather, there is remarkable agreement among scientists on where we stand today, and where we are headed in the near future. A hurricane like Sandy was never supposed to hit a city like New York, but it did.

Right now the planet is headed on a path to more and more extreme weather conditions. That going out of hand is a scenario where weather conditions in all parts of the world are extreme, volatile, and completely unpredictable. The fastest computers will have no clue. That is a bye bye agriculture scenario. Six billion people die. To get there all humanity has to do is stay on course. And The Devil's dream scenario gets realized. Kill Them All is The Devil's mantra.

But six billion don't fast to death. The kinds of human conflicts can't even be imagined. Humanity ends up in the stone age.

But the planet is not on an autopilot. It does not have to be this way. There's still time. There are still good options. There is a bend in the road the likes of which humanity has never seen. If the right moves are made, the worst case scenario is not only avoided, the world ends up in an Age Of Abundance. It is quite a bend in the road. Imagine a thousand trillion dollar global economy. Imagine a global Universal Basic Income, because the productivity gains from new technology are so out of the pale.

What is to be done? Step one is the formation of a world government. America as the leading nation has to lead. Barack Obama would be perfect for the George Washington role.

While the political trinity of Hillary, Warren and Bill Clinton run the show in DC. The President, the Vice President, and the Political Spirit.

Just like the League Of Nations became the United Nations, the UN can morph to become the world government.

Only a world government could steer humanity away from the impending climate catastrophe.

A year after Hillary has become president would be a good time to get started.

I believe the formula is fairly simple. A lower house where each country's weight is in proportion to its population, and an upper house where each country's weight is in proportion to its GDP, and 1% of GDP as each country's membership fee.

The President Of The World has to be able to collect over 50% of the votes in both chambers for a five year term.

But that is now. Eventually you want a directly elected POW, with people casting votes on their phones through their biometric IDs over a period of a week. You are hoping over 80% of the votes get cast.

The world government would have three branches, and a constitution. Something short and simple like the US constitution would work.

Holocaust Denial, Climate Change Denial

Donald Trump's number one crime is Climate Change denial.

In a worst case scenario Climate Change kills more than six billion people. Humanity is back in the stone age. And this is in the future. And it is preventable.

The path the earth is on right now leads to the worst case scenario. There is some serious steering to do.

But if the steering is done, the best case scenario has solar meeting 100% of the energy needs by as early as 2030, and the world ends up with almost free, limitless clean energy.

The best case scenario is The Age Of Abundance on all fronts.

Step one is a genuine world government. Barack Obama needs to play George Washington.

In short, there is a bend in the road, probably one of the most important bends in human history. To use one of Obama's favorite phrases, the arc of history bends towards justice, but it does not bend on its own.

There is work to do. There are choices to be made. There is a guy with horns and a tail to be vanquished. His name is Donald Trump.

The world government charges an annual membership fee of 1% of GDP from all countries. There are two chambers to its parliament. In the lower chamber each country's weight is in proportion to its population. In the upper chamber each country's weight is in proportion to its GDP. There are three branches to the government. The UN sees a sunset. A world government is born.

 

Purpose And Politics

Joe Biden und Barack Obama in Springfield, Illinois, right after Biden was formerly introduced by Obama as his running mate (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Barack Obama in 2007 talked relentlessly about clean energy on the campaign trail, to the point it almost felt out of whack sometimes. Like, who exactly are you talking to? And it felt impossible. Dirty energy's dominance was total. But by now solar is about to achieve grid parity with dirty, and is on track to totally take over by 2030.

The oil spill in the Gulf was Obama's Bay Of Pigs fiasco. I think the British did it on purpose. They are like, there is a black guy in DC and an up and coming brown guy in New Orleans. This is not looking right. Bobby never really recovered.

The democratic process matters. The conversations political leaders steer with the broader electorate matters.

The gay marriage victory was pretty dramatic. And it happened faster, much faster, than anyone imagined. I for one thought it might take a few more decades.

So, talk people.

What Did I Do?

Greenland: Should We Be Worried?

What scientists just discovered in Greenland could be making sea-level rise even worse

Climate Change Is For Real

Barack Obama Is Biologically Superior

The world’s most famous climate scientist just outlined an alarming scenario for our planet’s future

With his 1988 congressional testimony, the then-NASA scientist is credited with putting the global warming issue on the map by saying that a warming trend had already begun. “It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here,” Hansen famously testified. ...... Now Hansen — who retired in 2013 from his NASA post, and is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute — is publishing what he says may be his most important paper. Along with 16 other researchers — including leading experts on the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets — he has authored a lengthy study outlining an scenario of potentially rapid sea level rise combined with

more intense storm systems

...... The authors conclude that 2 degrees Celsius global warming—the widely accepted international target for how much the world should limit global warming—is “highly dangerous.” ...... the decline of West Antarctica could now be “irreversible.” ...... a non-linear process could be at work, triggering major sea level rise in a time frame of 50 to 200 years ..... major ice loss from both Antarctica and Greenland will change the circulation of the oceans, as large volumes of cold, fresh water pour into the seas. This freshening or decreasing saltiness of the ocean, at both poles, could ultimately block the oceans’ overturning circulation, in which (in the northern hemisphere) warm water travels northward, and then colder, denser water sinks and travels back south again. ........... there is already evidence of such cooling in the north Atlantic — presumably due to ice loss from Greenland. Note the large blue (cold) anomaly from this recent analysis of last winter’s global temperatures ....... Around Antarctica, meanwhile, sea ice has been growing — potentially another indicator of cooling and freshening at the ocean surface due to ice loss from the frozen continent. ..... In the model employed by Hansen and his coauthors, this cooling and freshening of the oceans eventually leads to a shutdown of the oceans’ circulation, and warm waters trapped at depth below a cold fresh surface layer in the Antarctic region, continually eating away at ice sheets from below. It also triggers a globe with ever-warming tropics but cold poles — leading to a large contrast in temperatures between the mid-latitudes and the polar regions. ........ A larger temperature contrast between the tropics and the poles, the researchers posit, would then strengthen winter storms or so-called extratropical cyclones, which draw their energy from such contrasts. The study therefore contemplates more powerful storms. It notes research suggesting that in the Eemian period, the last time the world saw major sea level rise of as much as 5 to 9 meters (between 16 and 30 feet), gigantic waves apparently moved huge boulders from the seafloor to the top of hills in the Bahamas.......... “There were storms, and a lot of more catastrophic type events associated with this big climate shift.” ........... The Eemian, the research suggests, may have only reached global average temperatures about 1 degree Celsius warmer than today — but nonetheless, featured these major changes. ........ “Ice mass losses from Greenland, West Antarctica and Totten/Aurora basin in East Antarctica are growing nonlinearly with doubling times of order 10 years,” notes the study. Elsewhere, it notes that “Doubling times of 10, 20 or 40 years yield sea level rise of several meters in 50, 100 or 200 years.” ...... “if [greenhouse gases] continue to grow, the amplifying feedbacks in the Southern Ocean, including expanded sea ice and [Southern ocean overturning circulation] slowdown likely will continue to grow and facilitate increasing Antarctic mass loss.” ........ sea level rise is “the big impact of human made climate change.”

Follow The Money?

English: To create this SVG-format logo, I took the EPS file at Brandsoftheworld.com, ran it through pstoedit, and then did the following modifications using Inkscape and Notepad: fixed priority (center of "O" in "Exxon"), centered on a correctly sized grid, and made markup simpler and more readable. Used in Exxon. Source: http://static.seekingalpha.com/wp-content/seekingalpha/images/thumb-Exxon_01.jpg Category:Oil company logos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says – but it funded deniers for 27 more years

ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil company, knew as early as 1981 of climate change – seven years before it became a public issue ...... the firm spent millions over the next 27 years to promote climate denial. ...... Exxon’s public position was marked by continued refusal to acknowledge the dangers of climate change, even in response to appeals from the Rockefellers, its founding family, and its continued financial support for climate denial. Over the years, Exxon spent more than $30m on thinktanks and researchers that promoted climate denial, according to Greenpeace. ....... Some climate campaigners have likened the industry to the conduct of the tobacco industry which for decades resisted the evidence that smoking causes cancer. ...... Climate change was largely confined to the realm of science until 1988, when the climate scientist James Hansen told Congress that global warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, due to the burning of fossil fuels. ....... “One thing that occurs to me is the behavior of the tobacco companies denying the connection between smoking and lung cancer for the sake of profits, but this is an order of magnitude greater moral offence, in my opinion, because what is at stake is the fate of the planet, humanity, and the future of civilisation, not to be melodramatic.” ...... “The science in 1981 on this subject was in the very, very early days and there was considerable division of opinion,” Richard Keil, an Exxon spokesman, said. “There was nobody you could have gone to in 1981 or 1984 who would have said whether it was real or not. ...... “We have been factoring the likelihood of some kind of carbon tax into our business planning since 2007. We do not fund or support those who deny the reality of climate change.” ...... Other companies, such as Mobil, only became aware of the issue in 1988, when it first became a political issue ..... Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard University professor who researches the history of climate science, said it was unsurprising Exxon would have factored climate change in its plans in the early 1980s – but she disputed Bernstein’s suggestion that other companies were not. She also took issue with Exxon’s assertion of uncertainty about the science in the 1980s, noting the National Academy of Science describing a consensus on climate change from the 1970s. ....... “I believe that the conduct outlined in the UCS report puts the fossil fuel companies’ social license at risk. And once that social license is gone, it is very hard to get it back. Just look at what happened to tobacco companies after litigation finally pried open the documents that exposed decades of misinformation and deception.” ....... Political battles need to personify the enemy. This is why liberals spend so much time vilifying the Koch brothers – who are hardly the only big money supporters of conservative ideas. In climate change, the first villain was a man named Donald Pearlman, who was a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. (In another life, he was instrumental in getting the US Holocaust Museum funded and built.) Pearlman’s usefulness as a villain ended when he died of lung cancer – he was a heavy smoker to the end. ....... ExxonMobil has not lost its position as the personification of corporate, and especially climate change, evil. ....... Having spent twenty years working for Exxon and ten working for Mobil, I know that much of that ethical behavior comes from a business calculation that it is cheaper in the long run to be ethical than unethical.

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Climate Change, Terrorism, Poverty, World Government

English: Global climate change 2000-2009 and 1950-1980/ Русский: Изменение средних температур за периоды 2000-2009 и 1950-1980. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why is it not surprising that all of the global problems only have global solutions? Terrorism is a big problem, but compared to Climate Change, it is a small problem. Poverty is someone else' problem, except it is not. Disease is Ebola. You don't want that.

On Climate Change, there are points of no return. Nature does not hold back. It does not care. It does not care about intelligent life. Or unintelligent life. The threat is very real. The time pressure is very real.

Time for a genuine world government is not 50 years from now. It is today.

After gays, it is guns. That next big liberal goal, to move from insane gun proliferation to sane gun control. On gay marriage they were the party of stupid. On guns, they are the party of insane. That is on the domestic front. On the global front, a 90% reduction in the US defense budget over a 10 year period will just make it an exercise in reallocation of resources. It does not have to be painful economically.

Rule of law within nations, rule of law between nations.

Climate Change does not have any other solution.

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A Genuine World Government

World Government And Federal States
Does The World Government Have To Await A Total Spread Of Democracy?

The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights is a pretty amazing document, the Magna Carta of our times. I envision a world government that has two chambers. In the lower chamber's voting right is in direct proportion to a country's population. In the upper chamber each country's voting right is in direct proportion to its GDP. Each member country pays one per cent of its GDP as the price for membership in the world body. And this need not wait until every country has become a democracy. This, on the other hand, will expedite the spread of democracy. This also will bring about rule of law between nations just like there is rule of law within nations. That will make room for a dramatic downsizing of the US defense budget by over 90%. God knows America needs to pay down on its debt. And if that cut is spread over 10 years, it need not be painful. The resources can go elsewhere, like in the energy sector.

The right to self determination is as fundamental as the right to free speech, the freedom of religion. What that means is all peoples have a right to federalism, and federalism means you can vote to secede at any time. On the other hand, a country could also vote to join another country and become its newest state, granted that country's legislature's accepts. Mexico might choose to join America. Or not. Mexico might wish, America might not so desire. Nepal might choose to join India, as might Burma, perhaps Bangladesh.

The good news is, this might be the only way to tackle Climate Change and avert catastrophe. Unless humanity can create a genuine world government, that is a sign humanity can not come together even in the face of certain disaster.