Climate Sunday: Amateur Meteorology for Dummies

 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has previously commented on Jewish Space Lasers and may believe in the Deep State Weather Machine, has suggested a rare and curious cure for the wildfires in California--just seed the clouds! It's an existing technology! We have the tools!

Problem is: we don't have the clouds. There is no moisture. The only moisture is what is being scooped up and thrown at the fires by brave airborne firefighters--like these Canadian and Mexican firefighters are doing:

We can't count on some god-like intervention--it's all sweat and tears from here. 

While We Wait for Trump's Arrest, The IPCC Report is Dire

 

I never wanted to spend my senior years on a dying planet, but that's what it looks like to me. The supposed leadership of the most industrialized countries are doing the very least to curb global warming, and have even decided, it seems, to promote the short-term benefits of fossil fuel usage for their electoral cycle (yes, I'm criticizing Biden over the Willow project). 

We're looking at the results of climate change in the eye all the time--take the weird winter of California's discontent: that isn't some freak global cooling, but a predictable weirding of the weather because patterns are disrupted. But we are still stuck with the effects of warming in the usually cooler places. We can see the devastation of our ecosystems in the deaths of fish due to heat waves in Australia. The southern hemisphere has been through it this past season. 

Climate change isn't predicting the future, but describing our present, now. And we are still jaded and in denial. Lives will be lost if action is not taken, but a look around social media indicates that loads of people still believe climate science is some kind of hoax. A conspiracy theory. 

I'm just a D-list blogger--I don't expect what I say to gain any traction and actually, my climate-related posts aren't even the ones that do any numbers. But what I do know is, changing people's POV via messaging and "flooding the zone" can be done--because the denialists have been doing it all this time. Solutions exist and funding them (like actually just fully comping changeover to solar energy or heat pumps) are within the reach of government actions. (Programs totally exist and are inadequate for many homeowners.) 

We can do more, and more aggressively. The political will has to be there, and the idea that the fossil fuel industry and the denialist-propagandist complex (like Fox News, who are known liars) needs to be called out for being the problem that they are. 

I think we still have the opportunity to make a better future. But that opportunity can't be pissed away--it must be vigorously and intelligently seized. 

Texas GOP are Making Special Choices

 

Apparently, the Log Cabin (I always fight my fingers not to type "Log Closet") Republicans are a little bit mad that the Texas GOP shut them out of their little get together. Like, yeah you can be disappointed but how are you surprised? Did Gov. Abbott not just criminalize basically treating trans kids at all? Make families where trans kids exist basically have to consider where they will move? In a state where the Governor basically puts a target on LGBT families, (the threat is real everywhere) are Gay Republican Texans thinking they are up above this mess? 

Tell you what, the "besieged" party that has been running Texas for the past couple decades thinks the answer is letting the queers know they are abnormal.  Forget what you think you know about what ails the state-- it's at least a little bit about LGBT people and maybe the whole weather thing is about prayer. (I'm just saying--same religious signifying, now with more scapegoating.) Could Texas Republicans do actual things that matter policy-wise for their citizens?*

Hahahahah-nope. They want a constitutional convention to prevent the federal government from stopping them from being as shitty as they want to be for marginalized people. They would greatly prefer no one ever taught their kids non-Confederate-loving history and worry the church is threatened by education existing. 

And Proud Boys attacked Dan Crenshaw of all conservative people as being John McCain with an eyepatch because their golden White Supremacist media god Tucker Carlson told them to. That's fucking crazy. 

But again--not surprising. The thing with a monster is, if you feed it, it grows, and that is what happens when you feed fascism. It grows. And that means that eliminationism becomes a fact, and the "management" of political figures by violent correction becomes a fact. When you encourage conspiracy theories, the truth becomes hairy. When you scapegoat, anyone can come under the onus. When you enable bullying, the bully boys become the only government that exists. And they suck. 

That means people need to make better choices while choices are still available. 

* (Yes, if they chose Beto O'Rourke and give him some Democrats in the State leg. Otherwise, probably not, all things like this considered.) 

UPDATE: I know full well they put some bullshit about wanting to secede from the Union and not accepting Joe Biden as their president into that document. But in the grand scheme of things, there's less they can immediately do about that shit than they can about fucking up marginalized peoples' lives and so on. And I know there are people who are like "Let Texas secede." Yeah, well, let me tell you about the people who don't vote Republican/don't vote at all. They don't deserve that life. It's a shame to suggest it. But yeah, the only out I see is the people make the stupids go away by taking their asses out of office. 

UPDATE: I know it's kind of fucked up that I didn't even reference the election denialism and the implied secessionism, but after the Tea Party and Birtherism, that's kind of old hat, isn't it? The Big Lie invalidates Biden because Biden is an old white guy and you can't pretend he wasn't born here. But I take for granted all Republicans believe that any Democratic president is somehow, some way, invalid. President Clinton's first term was supposed to be problematic because he didn't have a majority, with there being a third party candidate (that was trashed when he decisively won his second term, and the Whitewater investigation had to get nastier). And when Obama had Bin Laden taken out and issued his birth certificate, you know, Benghazi became this major thing. Republicans don't believe Democrats should exist be in office. I believe one of their pundits once said a fewliberals should be kept around in cages to remind people of what we were like but I can't remember who it was at the moment. Probably Ann Coulter.

Trying to Understand Cullman

 

The rally in Cullman, Alabama, in the midst of a state of emergency due to COVID-19 (things are pretty dire), was exceptionally well-attended, despite the weather. This is definitely Trump country. It isn't vaccination country.  They're pretty solidly Republican.  They went pretty soundly for Trump--although Biden voters exist in that county. Cullman was settled by German immigrants just post Civil War and is considered by some to be a sundown town. As in--people with direct experience of it. 

Their local ABC affiliate is in the Sinclair Broadcast Group. The Cullman Tribune looks fine. This is one of those areas where ivermectin might be more available than hospital beds, but these folks aren't stupid--there are good schools in Cullman. I can't help but note, though, that this crowd was stroppy two times during the show put on by the Trump travelling political players:

The first time was when Mo Brooks, Senate candidate, I guess, suggested that Trump stalwarts move past the stolen 2020 elections to concentrate on 2022. (Ignoring whatever Mike Lindell was on about, which is pretty easy to do.)

Did he think these people were stupid? If you admit that the 2020 election was stolen and don't address that--how are they supposed to accept the 2022 election as anything but bullshit? Where are their assurances? What the hell? It's as if you were just saying 2020 was stolen to make noise but just hoped you would get voted for later! (The folks of Cullman could see through that devious fuckery, that much I can tell you.)

The second time was when Trump recommended that the crowd get vaccinated.  Was Trump seriously going to act as an agent of Bill Gates and make sure everyone gets a microchip, or what? And what about the vaccine injury, and the other twaddle these folks have drank deep of at wells no more or less polluted than the Joseph Flynn (brother of Mike Flynn) Twitter feed, where he eschews the vax for ivermectin. How in the world is Trump not aware of this incredible predatory bullshit?

So despite boring the good people of Cullman, who braved rain, which is a very real thing, and COVID-19, which could be a hoax (it isn't), with tales of listening to crying men and 5 year old children in forming his foreign policy, and also lying his ass off in other ways too good too be fact-checked, Trump came really close to these folks wondering what he really was about--because that kayfabe is what makes the wrestling match work. Does Trump want another January 6 or what? Are they supposed to spread the Wu Flu to spite Biden or what? 

I'd love to think they have questions. But as they stood check and jowl where there's about 15% Covid infectivity, I worry more about their lives than their minds. Because I think they have been lied to a lot and they deserve better than anyone dying for this one trick pony and other assorted dogs show. 

A Day With No Surprises

Trump warns against U.S. accepting Bahamian refugees who survived Hurricane Dorian

Trump: “I don’t want to allow people that weren’t supposed to be in the Bahamas to come into the (U.S.) — including some very bad people & very bad gang members.” https://t.co/fqnnxFkijd

— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) September 9, 2019

It's not that today was a slow news day, mind you, that I found it to be day with no surprises. If Trump tries to justify not letting Bahamian refugees into this country because he thinks there might be some "very bad people", why, how is that a surprise when he's used the same justifications for barring migration from Central and South America and banning Muslims? It might seem shockingly racist and xenophobic, in addition to being mind-blowingly cruel, but surprising?

Nope.

News has been broken regarding the Scottish airport that has been used recently by US flight crews who went on to berth at his Turnberry property. "NOTHING TO DO WITH ME" Trump Tweeted--which pretty much is the sort of denial I have come to take to be equal to an admission. By "nothing to do with", Trump means nothing more than, he didn't book them in himself. The Air Force and Congress will be examining this further.

Oh. Another investigation? Must be a day ending in "y".

Should We Talk About the Weather?

NEW, exclusive: NOAA staff warned in Sept. 1 directive against contradicting Trump: https://t.co/SbABVx8pec

— Capital Weather Gang (@capitalweather) September 8, 2019

Should we talk about the government? Because it looks like NOAA top brass had to tell their people, whose job is the weather, not to talk about it, because if they contradicted the Little Bronze God in the Oval Temple, what would he do? Maybe reduce their funding through some leger des main trop petit pour un gross homme, in much the same way he is raiding other programs for money to fund his border wall. You better believe people snap to when Trump makes demands if a Rear Admiral decides his job description is "one who covers Trump's entire orange peel rear." (That's the Coast Guard, and in addition to taking a hit from Trump's utterly stupid shut-down shenanigans from last year into this year over wall funding, they too are getting raided for wall money. Maybe the man threw himself on a reputation grenade for his department. I can't be too judgmental about that.) It kind of implies that Trump is running the government like some kind of mob boss.

There's a lot of other indicators, of course. Is the DOJ using a litmus test to decide what local and state governments get grants? Looks like it. That reflects back on Trumpism. Does it look like the same DOJ is being used as a cudgel against the auto industry for siding with California over Trump regarding air pollution? You tell me. Is politicization at the State Department a problem? Check the number of vacancies in that department. Government jobs might not pay the best, but they usually are great at providing a sense of security and focus and usefulness, and now? Not so much. Because everything Trump does undermines professionalism. Everything is corrupt.

The Trump folks are trying to undermine journalism, too, even if the message sometimes gets lost in their incompetence and mendacity. (Eric Trump probably just verified for us that most reporters don't ever assume he's worth asking for the inside dope because, um, well, they assume he's mostly an outside dope. For reasons.) But the games played with Jim Acosta and Brian Karem's press passes, as well as several other journalists', are intended to let them know--you say nice things about the boss, and it'll be all good. Don't make trouble.

You don't need (to be) a Weatherman...

Trump displays map altered with marker showing Dorian's path extended toward Alabama https://t.co/sFG6LnOWpZ pic.twitter.com/wZL0waxrW2

— The Hill (@thehill) September 4, 2019

....to see this map is altered.

Holy Forking Shirtballs, the big ninny used a Sharpie to add Alabama to the hurricane map because he's still wrong and he can't stand it. Everybody looking at that map can tell very well what the deal is. And the folks who work with and for him are just like, "Whatever."

Absolutely astonishing, and yet, not completely beyond belief.

UPDATE: And this just in--

He really can't just drop it, already. It's just nonsense.

Climate Sunday: Bless Texas

This man is a preacher checking for people inside cars at 610 & 288 PC Brian Roberson Jr @KPRC2 #Harvey pic.twitter.com/NJx58ZN8N8

— Sara Donchey (@KPRC2Sara) August 27, 2017

There is an amazing grace people can show in a time of overwhelming tragedy, and while a part of me does feel a need to point out that this possibly 500-year flood can't be separated from the specter of climate change, and that city-planning in future needs to be wiser overall, it's the heroes I want to point out--people who are helping one another.

An unbelievable but honest photo of nursing home residents waiting to get rescued in Houston. 😢 pic.twitter.com/XtOXdjE7dZ

— Citizen Servant 🔆 (@citizenservant) August 27, 2017

Climate Sunday: Ted Cruz, Climate Blasphemer Edition

Via Right Wing Watch, here's a clip of Ted Cruz (I'm sorry I'm on his case as of late) explaining that climate change alarmists are actually in a religion because they "never" argue from facts, and that being called a denialist proves it, because he thinks he's really a "skeptic". Bless his heart.

He's precious. I think it's kind of weird to hear a flat-out statement that people persuaded by climate change theory don't have facts, because it seems to me like I'm stuffing all sorts of observable data into my Climate Sunday posts. I think it's also adorable that he defines the business of a skeptic as being the business of science, which in effect is correct--but he isn't a skeptic, because he himself isn't engaging with the business of disproving squat, he's just ignoring whatever evidence does exist while providing disproved anecdata about an 18 year gap which is cherry-picked nonsense. That there isn't scientific--that's just political Lysenkoism.

In keeping with his idea that being a climate change evangelist makes me a religious adherent, then, I dub Cruz a climate blasphemer. The spit should dry up in his mouth like the Texas drought, and then the sweat should pour from his face like the Texas floods. This is my malocchio against him.

Climate Sunday: Oil Under Them Thar Ice Floes

Here's the sort of news story that makes one fairly certain that people in the oil industry are missing all of the points regarding climate change:

Russian energy giant Rosneft says it has discovered oil with its US project partner Exxon Mobil at a controversial well in the Arctic.

Drilling was completed in record time, it said, but questions remain about how quickly the well can be developed.

Exxon has said it will "wind down" the project following US sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

****

Rosneft boss Igor Sechin, himself a target of US sanctions, said the well had produced "an astonishing sample of light oil".

Sure. They've got that nice, easy to drill, easy to refine stuff. Good for them. Still and all, is this where they seriously want to develop a drilling infrastructure and transport system? Because, I don't know. Light crude or not, it still seems a bit dear, you know?

"Astonishing samples' aside--is this the sustainable model? The Artic? Are petrocorps that much persuaded this is the future (especially as global warming reduces the ice in the area)? They are exploring an area they only can explore because the use of this kind of fuel has changed the geography to make it more accessible. Are they counting so much on the idea it won't change in less agreeable ways? Or are they just planning on selling gas-powered air conditioners to the polar bears?

Climate Sunday: Could Winter Sports Be Going All Downhill From Here?

Although I don't really follow the Olympics and by the wintr'y armpits of Ymir, am I sick of snow! it is worth noting that this particular Olympics has been marred in part by the uncooperative weather of Sochi, which has been most unseasonably warm.  Appropos of this, my climate Sunday post is dedicated to winter sports.

Now, I don't ski, myself. My last "skiing vacation" turned into a brewpub crawl through Vermont, which will probably surprise exactly no one.  So I think I'll leave it to a US Olympic team Skiier to point out the grim future of his sport--that would be Andrew Newell, who offered a column for USA Today: 

As a skier, my life revolves around winter and being outside. Years spent training have not only honed my skills, but also shown me the negative impacts of climate change first-hand. There have been countless times in the past 10 years when our early season competitions have been delayed or canceled due to lack of snow, or our spring and summer training camps disrupted due to erratic weather or insufficient snowpack. It's no coincidence then that the last decade was also the hottest decade ever recorded.

Without efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, the winter sport economy in my home state of Vermont will disappear in the near future, and has already begun feeling the heat. Between 2000-2010, the snow sport industry lost over $1 billion in revenue as a result of shrinking snow packs and shortened winters. In a 2012 report detailing global warming's effect on the snow industry, scientists predicted that more than half of the 103 ski resorts in the Northeast are at risk of not being able to maintain a 100-day season by 2039.

This brings a terrible cost to regions that depend on recreational winter tourism. And his fellow athletes also agree because they too have noticed the changes. In some areas, some dubious means are being used to try and bring snow to drought-prone areas. But what happens when no snow will stay?

The trends showing reduced snowpack aren't just bad news for winter sports, it also impacts the water available for irrigation and the volume of lakes, rivers and streams for fishing. People are right to be alarmed at something that so changes their way of living, but looking at the way it impacts our sports shows that it also affects our quality of life.

Weirder than My Comprehension

I refrained last evening from adding any commentary regarding the devastation in the wake of the vast tornado that struck Oklahoma, as surely, any mixture of "Well, clearly climate change..." or "wonder what those rat bastards Inhofe and Coburn..." just didn't feel right to me as yet (I will go there, but fools rush in and all that). But whilst I was refraining, the notorious conspiracy monger, Alex Jones, was already folding the tragedy into his usual froth of fantasy, alluding to the possibility that President Obama brought on the catastrophe by way of a weather-altering device.

Surely this is arrant nonsense. If Obama had a weather-altering device, why ever would he require anyone to hold an umbrella for him? Wouldn't he just conspire to have good weather whenever he gave speeches out of doors? People, please make sense. You aren't, and it worries me.