Uh, It's Jayvee.
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![jtotheizzoe:
Valentine’s Day Climate Denial Bombshell
In documents leaked yesterday, The Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank funded at various times by the Koch family, ExxonMobil and and R.J. Reynolds, detailed plans to create a K-12 curriculum designed to dissuade teachers from teaching science in order to support climate change denial.
A key passage:
We are pursuing a proposal…to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools…[this] effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.
A coal industry consultant named David Wojick (who has a Ph.D. in something called “Philosophy of Science”) was to be paid $100,000 to design these classroom materials. Heartland also targeted publications like Forbes as new mouthpieces, since
“Efforts at places such as Forbes are especially important now that they have begun to allow high-profile climate scientists (such as [Peter] Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own. This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out.”
The documents were released by an anonymous leak, and have thus far been verified by budget comparisons, tax documents and metadata in the documents that were released. Ironically, Heartland was one of the cheerleaders for the manufactured email-leak controversy known as “ClimateGate” in 2009-2010.
This is some of the most damning proof I’ve ever seen of the depth of organization, money and conspiracy that goes into today’s science denialism movement.
Rundown of good coverage:
DeSmogBlog has released the full documents and has more background
Bad Astronomy for comparisons with ClimateGate
Shawn Otto details the denialist machine at HuffPo Science
Chris Mooney at Science Progress’ Intersection blog
And this seems a bit reminiscent to some current events, doesn’t it?](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzfyop2qt01qbh26io1_1280.jpg)
Valentine’s Day Climate Denial Bombshell
In documents leaked yesterday, The Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank funded at various times by the Koch family, ExxonMobil and and R.J. Reynolds, detailed plans to create a K-12 curriculum designed to dissuade teachers from teaching science in order to support climate change denial.
A key passage:
We are pursuing a proposal…to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools…[this] effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.
A coal industry consultant named David Wojick (who has a Ph.D. in something called “Philosophy of Science”) was to be paid $100,000 to design these classroom materials. Heartland also targeted publications like Forbes as new mouthpieces, since
“Efforts at places such as Forbes are especially important now that they have begun to allow high-profile climate scientists (such as [Peter] Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own. This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out.”
The documents were released by an anonymous leak, and have thus far been verified by budget comparisons, tax documents and metadata in the documents that were released. Ironically, Heartland was one of the cheerleaders for the manufactured email-leak controversy known as “ClimateGate” in 2009-2010.
This is some of the most damning proof I’ve ever seen of the depth of organization, money and conspiracy that goes into today’s science denialism movement.
Rundown of good coverage:
- DeSmogBlog has released the full documents and has more background
- Bad Astronomy for comparisons with ClimateGate
- Shawn Otto details the denialist machine at HuffPo Science
- Chris Mooney at Science Progress’ Intersection blog
And this seems a bit reminiscent to some current events, doesn’t it?
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And of course, the end of blogging media such as Tumblr.
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We came, we saw, 30,000 Libyans died
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton boasts about Muammar Gaddafi’s death, “We came, we saw, he died.”
It is an apt summary of the White House’s foreign policy towards Libya, though it might be better phrased as “We came, we saw, 30,000 Libyans died.”
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EU Banks Vow to Slash Assets by $1 Trillion Banks in France, the U.K., Ireland, Germany and Spain have announced plans to shrink by about 775 billion euros ($1.06 trillion) in the next two years to reduce short-term funding needs and comply with tougher regulatory capital requirements, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Morgan Stanley bank analysts predict that amount could reach 2 trillion euros across Europe by the end of next year as banks curb lending and sell loans and entire businesses. A lack of buyers and the losses lenders face on loan sales are making those targets unrealistic.
So what’s going on here is this:
- Eurozone banks hold hold trillions of euro worth of eurozone government debt - including plenty from Greece and other high-risk countries like Italy and Portugal. Accordingly, they’re in danger of not being able to cover their liabilities (e.g., customers’ deposits) if a eurozone government defaults.
- To make sure the banks don’t go lose the ability to cover liabilities (e.g., customers’ deposits), banking regulators are requiring banks to increase the proportion of safe assets they’re holding. (Safe assets are things like Canadian government bonds or Swiss francs; unsafe assets are things like tech-company stock, oil, or Greek government debt. If it would get wiped out in a crash, then it’s unsafe.)
- Ordinarily, banks would just sell some unsafe assets and buy some safe ones, but right now this is impossible because no one is willing to buy their unsafe assets. Banks would have to sell all their unsafe assets at a huge loss, and that’s probably dangerous right now because if these eurozone banks took any more losses they’d likely go under.
- Instead, banks are going to increase their proportion of safe assets by decreasing the total amount of assets they’re holding. If you think of it as a fraction (proportion of assets which are safe = safe assets / total assets) then they’re reducing the denominator of that fraction.
- To make this happen, the banks are reducing the amount of loans they’re offering, which reduces the total amount of outstanding loans. Basically, they are making it much more difficult for individuals and businesses to borrow, in order to downsize their total holdings.
This is a totally reasonable response by the bank regulators (and likely the only response that will save the European banking system from totally failing in the next year or two) but it’s also seriously suboptimal since a reduction in lending is going to be really tough for the economy. It makes it more difficult for businesses to expand, for young people to go to school, and for consumers to buy houses. Maybe governments will step up and provide more lending, and maybe new lenders will be able to enter the market, but these are both less likely since the economy is so absolutely terrible everywhere in Europe. A big bank shrinkage like this is going to hit economic growth pretty badly. Again, the alternative is probably widespread bank collapse, but still.
Oh and also there are huge riots in Athens (estimated at 100,000 people, which is amazing for a country of 9 million) and Moody’s has downgraded Spanish government debt again and it’s looking unlikely that any comprehensive solution will be ready before the end of the year. So that’s not reassuring either.
I’m sincerely hoping that the people in Europe can live through this. They’ll have to tighten their belts for the meantime. Hopefully the EU governments can find lighter methods to address the problem. But I think that a trough in the economic progress is inevitable in these kinds of problems.
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Science reveals the capitalist network that runs the world AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.
The study’s assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.
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“Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it’s conspiracy theories or free-market,” says James Glattfelder. “Our analysis is reality-based.” -
Rick Perry’s Environmental Appointees Censor Report to Remove Climate Change Effects
The appointees of Gov. Good-Hair took a heavy “editing” hand to a paper on sea level rise in Galveston Bay. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is notoriously denialist when it comes to climate change, but this really takes the cake.
In a report commissioned to determine the environmental health of Galveston Bay (a coastal area near Houston), the TCEQ censored all mentions of man-made climate change and rising sea levels.
The scientists are fighting back, though. They released the edited form of the document to the press (above), showing the numerous deletions, and are refusing to allow its publication with their names attached. Click here to look through their censorship job at Mother Jones.
(via jtotheizzoe)
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Hundreds Of Protesters Descend To ‘Occupy Wall Street’ cwnl:
Hundreds of demonstrators took to The Streets of Manhattan’s Financial District on Saturday in a largely peaceful protest aimed at drawing attention to the role powerful financial interests played in wreaking havoc on America’s economy.
A totally valid point we keep seeing on Twitter — why Saturday? If you’re going to start this, why not Monday? To give a good comparison: Back in 2000, Rage Against the Machine and Michael Moore drew a TON of press for shooting the music video for “Sleep Now in the Fire” in front of Wall Street … on a Wednesday. On Saturday, the people you’re protesting against are largely at home. And while this is the symbolic home of the stock market, the real home of the stock market has largely moved to New Jersey. This is not to undercut the points being made by the protests … but to point out the logistics at hand. If this is only the start, then our point is moot, but if the movement loses steam in a few days, the initial impact of the moment will be lost. Will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
(via shortformblog)
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Turkey opens its eyes to domestic violence
Being a woman in Turkey means living with several contradictions. On the one hand, Turkish women were granted the right to vote as early as 1934, ahead of numerous European nations, and they have been far better off than their sisters throughout the Muslim world. Western visitors to Turkey today frequently express their surprise at seeing women highly active and vocal in all cultural, economic and social spheres. Yet on the other hand, there is a darker side to the story that only now is being openly discussed, openly contested: domestic violence. In recent months, both print and visual media in Turkey have been running story after story about domestic violence: ex-husbands who shoot their ex-wives in front of their children, abusive husbands who come back to kill, boyfriends or fiancés who cannot forgive being dumped and seek revenge.
As disheartening as the situation is, there is also a growing reaction and a grassroots movement to stop it. Nowadays it is widely acknowledged that violence against women is not only confined to a few uneducated families in remote undeveloped regions. More importantly, until today, it was mainly assumed that such cases were a “family affair”. If a husband was beating his wife, this was their problem. Now this assumption is fully debunked. More and more public figures are coming out to say that domestic violence is everyone’s business and we should, as a society, interfere. (via guardian.co.uk)
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Corporations are people.
Technically, in the business and financial sense, corporations ARE separate entities from their incorporators. This is primarily done to shield the incorporators and/or stockholders from being sued because of business and corporation lapses. But this has totally been taken out of context by Romney.
(via soupsoup)
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“No social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of dedicated individuals.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. (via gaywrites) -
“ Given all of this, anyone who wants to see the reigning in of corporate power in the interests of ordinary people and environmental sanity cannot campaign or vote for Barack Obama again. There is no time to fall once more into the trap of lesser-evilism. It’s not a question of worrying about whether the Republicans will win in 2012; their policies already have.
Whoever does win in 2012—and, judging by recent campaign contributions, the corporations and ruling class are backing an Obama second term—people and the planet will lose. The only way to bring real change, the only hope for environmental and social activists in the United States, is to work completely outside the Democratic Party and within the new social movements against nuclear power, against hydrofracking for natural gas and against mountain top removal for coal, to name only a few.
The challenge of our age is to build links between the movements, with the rank and file of the labor unions and internationally with other groups to create a mass movement in the United States that campaigns for a redirection of government funds toward renewable-energy jobs, energy conservation, public transportation and the new infrastructure that is so obviously and desperately needed. We must reject the false “choice” that we are presented with by both mainstream parties: Do you want us to cut flesh from your arm or your leg?
The money for such social and ecological projects cannot once again be sought from the mass of the people, but must come from the coffers of the corporations and the fabulously wealthy by raising their taxes and pulling out of the wars. Most U.S. corporations pay no income tax, neither do a large percentage of foreign companies doing business in the U.S.
If politicians were really serious about closing the budget gap it could very easily be done just by closing those tax loopholes, let alone by raising their taxes back to historical levels. In itself, this would raise trillions of dollars.
The fact that the richest 400 people in the United States have more wealth than 50 percent of U.S. households—150 million Americans—is truly obscene. Likewise, that the money spent by the U.S. military just on air-conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan was $20.2 billion in 2010 is a monument to the insanity of capitalist priorities in a world that is crying out for food, clothing, shelter and environmental redress.
The only way we are going to achieve real ecological and social progress in the U.S. is to cut all ties to the Democrats and fashion our own independent movement that is organized, autonomous and out on the streets, not lobbying in the corridors of power.
The evidence is so compelling, and the time for action so short, that all equivocation must end, all ties to the Democrats must be severed, and a new, stronger, more effective movement will rise from the ashes of Obama’s false promises, one that can truly combat the inequities of the world and forge policies that will begin to heal the planet.
This really is the last, best hope for the Earth.
”—Chris Williams, Sacrificing the Earth on the altar of politics
I recommend giving the entire article a read. This is a critically important topic.
(via mohandasgandhi)
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Not necessarily. It is essentially a freedom to partake in the decisions that oversee the well-being of a country. Therefore, the people — the voting public, specifically — have the prerogative and the challenge to know more about the candidates running for election so that they do not feel regret afterwards.
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“By 2050, with a projected population of 10 billion people and without a change in consumption patterns, the cumulative use of natural resources will amount to the productivity of up to 27 planet Earths.” -
Climate Adaptation: Breaking: France Bans Fracking Vote was: Conservatives for, socialists against. Not a typo. The bill allows gas drilling, but bans hydraulic fracking. Thus, it’s a comprise between sides - the socialists wanted a 100% ban on all drilling to protect the environment.
The French parliament voted on June 30 to ban the controversial technique for extracting natural gas from shale rock deposits known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the web sites of Le Monde and other French media reported.
The bill had already passed the National Assembly, the country’s lower chamber, on June 21, and on June 30 a Senate vote of 176 to 151 made France the first country to enact such a ban, just as New York State is preparing to lift a moratorium on the same method.
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“I used to think your reality shaped your politics; but it’s clear now. Your politics shape reality.” —Jon Stewart in this great segment about the Supreme Court, video game violence and the Wisconsin State Supreme Court’s internal issues. (via joshsternberg)
Sad, but true.
