Sing It! “Impeach the President”

According to polls, as Rosa Brooks writes in a column in the LATimes, the people have at last woken up to the lies of the current administration, even if they’re too apathetic to do anything about it.

What would happen if mainstream Americans [demonstrated their opposition]? If the 33% of Americans who think Bush should be impeached took to the streets to peaceably express their views, that would be almost 100 million marchers — enough to wake up even the most somnolent of politicians. If the 47% of Americans who think U.S. troops should leave Iraq ASAP actually marched on Washington, our troops would already be on their way home. If the 60% of Americans who disapprove of Bush’s job performance decided to stage a peaceful sit-in outside the White House, they’d spill over into a dozen neighboring states, and the American political machine would grind to a screeching halt.

Now, Neil Young has taken action, recording a song called, yes, "Impeach the President." It should be out in about two months, with, according to Editors & Publishers, a 100-voice choir.

FEEEE-MA!

While shaking off the jet lag, I haven’t posted much, in hopes of making sense when I do, but here’s an item that’s just irresistible. Last week New Orleans hosted the annual Tennessee Williams festival, as usual, which includes a competition. According to the story in Variety by Richard Ouzounian (safely locked away behind a firewall):

The specter of Katrina stayed in the background until the festival’s finale, the Stanley and Stella shouting contest, in which two dozen contestants stand under a balcony in Jackson Square and bellow "Stellllaaaa!" in imitation of Brando’s performance in "A Streetcar Named Desire." (Females are allowed to shout "Staaaaaaanley!")

However, this year’s winner, Rick Legoretta from New Orleans, scored his success instead by bellowing "FEMAAAA!," the acronym for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, broadly attacked for its handling of the post-Katrina crisis.

The deafening response from the crowd indicated New Orleans had lost neither its sense of humor nor its capacity for defiance, two qualities Williams cherished.

The playwright’s spirit was definitely in evidence this year. After all, he was the man who once wrote, "High station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace."

Few cities have survived more appalling experiences than New Orleans did this past year, or done so with more grace. Thomas Lanier Williams would have been proud.

The Cost of Prevention vs. The Cost of Cure

While on a long flight home (and thanks for all the comments when I was gone!), I read in its entirety Australian scientist Tim Flannery’s well-reviewed book on global warming, The Weather Makers. Despite a somewhat flat title, the book turns out to be a superb introduction to the subject.

Flannery finds ways to enliven a huge story with charming little facts and observations, and while not avoiding alarming possibilities and bitter truths, also brings up some important bits of good news, some of which can be referenced on-line.

Here’s an important one. As Flannery writes in his chapter on "The Road to Kyoto":

Economist Eban Goodstein has undertaken a detailed analysis of past projections of regulatory costs as they relate to a variety of industries. Goodstein demonstrated that in every case, when compared to the actual costs paid, the estimates were grossly inflated. His examples range from asbestos to vinyl, and in all instances the estimated cost flowing from regulatory was at least double the actual post paid, while in some cases estimates were even more exaggerated.

Is this a case of Industry spin? Actually, no.

This inflation of estimated costs holds regardless of whether industry itself or an independent assessor did the work, which suggests a systematic source of error.

Where could it come from?

Goodstein argues the reason for this discrepancy is that economists find it difficult to anticipate the innovative ways in which industry goes about complying with new regulations.

If you check out Goodstein’s study (which he wrote up for the American Prospect) you’ll find that not only do economists consistently overestimate the cost of complying with regulations, they consistently underestimate the cost of cleaning up damaged environments. Or, as Goodstein puts it:

The message from these cases is clear. On the one hand, treating already polluted water, cleaning dirty soil, and scrubbing oily rocks costs a lot of money, (much) more than expected. On the other, when it comes to reducing pollution emissions at the source, it is almost certain to be (substantially) cheaper than we think it will be. Updating Poor Richard’s Almanack, an ounce of prevention is clearly worth a pound of cleanup.

My Favorite New Quote

Via Chris Clarke’s Creek Running North. From Edward Abbey:

The geologic approach is certainly primary and fundamental, underlying the attitude and outlook that best support all others, including the insights of poetry and the wisdom of religion. Just as the earth itself forms the indispensable ground for the only kind of life we know, providing the sole sustenance of our minds and bodies, so does empirical truth constitute the foundation of higher truths. (If there is such a thing as higher truth.)

It seems to me that Keats was wrong when he asked, rhetorically, “Do not all charms fly … at the mere touch of cold philosophy?” The word “philosophy” standing, in his day, for what we now call “physical science.” But Keats was wrong, I say, because there is more charm in one “mere” fact, confirmed by test and observation, linked to other facts through coherent theory into a rational system, than in a whole brainful of fancy and fantasy. I see more poetry in a chunk of quartzite than in a make-believe wood nymph, more beauty in the revelations of a verifiable intellectual construction than in whole misty empires of obsolete mythology.

The moral I labor toward is that a landscape as splendid as that of the Colorado Plateau can best be understood and given human significance by poets who have their feet planted in concrete – concrete data – and by scientists whose heads and hearts have not lost the capacity for wonder. Any good poet, in our age at least, must begin with the scientific view of the world; and any scientist worth listening to must be something of a poet, must possess the ability to communicate to the rest of us his sense of love and wonder at what his work discovers.

Off to See the Witch

We’re off to see the witch of melancholy in Berlin, as well–more importantly–our daughter in Paris.

Guess I must be crazy to search her out. But hey; I’m not alone. In Paris for this exhibit at the Grand Palais, people stood in line for three hours. In Berlin, at the Neue Nationalgalerie, one hour.

It’s not coming to this country. Are you surprised?

Won’t blog from the road, but will likely have a post or two from the archives.

I’ve become so accustomed to posting I wonder if I’ll feel slothful or negligent…or free!

Here’s the witch. In your virtual thoughts, wish us all a safe and happy return from her company…

Lucascranachonmelancholy

Top Ten Global Warming Hit

Like many others, including Dave  Roberts at Gristmill, I’ve been trying to compile a list of top ten global warming hits. I’ve come up with one or two, but haven’t found that knock-out song that nobody’s heard of yet.

I begin to think maybe it hadn’t been written. 

Until now. Check out "Tables and Chairs" by Andrew Bird (via iTunes) at http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=41454138&s=143441&i=41454134%5D

For 99 cents, it’s a ridiculously good bargain.

Inspirational Verse:

don’t, don’t you worry,
about the atmosphere
or any sudden pressure change
cause
i know
that it’s starting to get warm in here

and things are starting to get strange

I need to know more. Now.

Unfortunately for me, Bird is about to play in Michigan, Germany, and Amsterdam.

But you can learn more at Radio Paradise, which is where I first heard of him.  Also available from an early mini-lp is a wonderful free mp3 called lull.

And it looks like Bird has been interested in climate for some time:

Weathersystemsbyandrewbird

George Will Snaps at the Facts

Following up on the picture of George Will refusing to listen to the facts, here’s a record of the off-camera exchange on "This Week" that ensued, via Framing Science:

In a roundtable exchange about climate change on ABC NEWS’ THIS WEEK with George Stephanopoulos, resident conservative George Will stuck to the standard conservative framing by playing up scientific uncertainty and emphasizing the possible economic costs. But what I didn’t catch watching the show live, appears in the official transcript from Lexis. See below.

To end the exchange, when The Nation’s Katrina Vanden Heuvel countered by emphasizing scientific consensus, the need for immediate action, and the continued politicization of the issue by the Bush administration, according to the transcript, George Will responded by telling her to"Shut up."

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s move on. My guess is that nothing at all happens this year at least not before the election. Let’s go on to global warming. The cover of "Time" magazine this morning says "Be Very Worried." They have a special edition on global warming and, George will, I got to present this to you. Because, I mean, we’ve been debating this for ten years now. You’ve been doing it for 20 on "This Week." But "time" magazine says…

GEORGE WILL (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) 30.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) 30. Excuse me. You’re exactly right. Says the debate is over. The serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded is the real deal and human activity has been causing it. You’re pulling out your charts.

GRAPHICS: GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE

GEORGE WILL (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) "New York Times" 1975, sooner or later a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable. Northern hemisphere glaciations. Tell your Governor in Montana to just wait a while. Northern hemisphere glaciations. This according to ‘Science" magazine.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) In the last year we had so much new evidence from the North Pole, from the South Pole, from Greenland from all around that something real is happening.

GEORGE WILL (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) I’m willing to stipulate all the sources that were wrong 30 years ago are now right. Let’s assume that there is global warming. It is an absolute certainty that the climate at any point in human history is either warming or cooling. It goes through cycles. Let’s assume it’s warming and let’s assume that it is human activity that’s causing it. Now what? We can burn Montana coal as the Montana Governor suggested. But the fact is, any solution requires trillions of dollars of sacrifice from world economic growth. That’s trillions of dollars that won’t be spent on education, culture, AIDS prevention. Are we sure we want to do this?

FAREED ZAKARIA (EDITOR) I’m not sure that’s true, George. I agree with you there is some fluctuation but there is a virtual consensus, as George says, that it is happening more rapidly, ten of the hottest years in the – in recorded history have been in…

GEORGE WILL (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) No, he said in the last 200 years. What was happening 200 years ago?

FAREED ZAKARIA (EDITOR

You haven’t had temperatures recorded for more than 200 years, sorry, George, but the point is…

GEORGE WILL (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) You do get it out of the glacier ice and you can tell. I mean, it’s pre-rings, all the rest. You can find a lot of climatologically history from…

FAREED ZAKARIA (EDITOR

I’m not debate physics with you, George, because neither you nor I are scientists. What I will suggest is, if you were to take the attitude that, look, better to err on the side of caution because it does appear that very rapid temperature movements in either direction would be extremely harmful.

GEORGE WILL (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Better trillion dollar errors?

FAREED ZAKARIA (EDITOR

You don’t need a trillion – something very simple like a carbon tax, something many staunchly free market economists agree with. Because what a carbon tax basically says is when you burn fossil fuels you are producing costs, environmentally, I would add politically, the war in Iraq, that are not being captured by a simple economic market.

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL (‘THE NATION")

There is broad scientific consensus. We are now no longer a debate about whether we have global warming. It is whether we are facing a tipping point and rushing into a catastrophe. How do we halt it? The British commissioner for pollution called those who deny global climate change climate loonies. Those that deny it at this point are like those who didn’t believe cigarette smoke caused cancer. What we do now is a measure of our civilization. It is also a measure of security, George, and I think 87% I believe of Americans in that "Time" magazine poll supported tax credits for alternative energy. That is one way to go, but this Administration rewrites science with political spin. It silences scientists like James Hanson and it scrubs websites of information.

GEORGE WILL (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Shut up.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) This debate – we’ll come back to it many times. Thank you all very much.

Don’t Bother George Will with the Facts

Here’s a great image (via Crooks and Liars) of George Will giving the international sign for "don’t bother me with the facts."

Will predictably took the Wall St. Journal line on global warming, saying that "any solution requires trillions of dollars of sacrifice from world economic growth."

This flat denial ignores the vast potential costs of a changing climate, of course, and the likelihood of bigger and more destructive storms.

Not to mention the huge profits that are being made right now in solar energy (see below) for one, and other profits to be found in other solutions.

Will’s fellow panelists didn’t buy his contention. Nor did most of the commentators. (In one comment on the original post, which I must paraphrase from memory, someone said that Will wouldn’t believe in global warming until the air was so thick that a baseball thrown from the pitching mound wouldn’t reach home plate.)

But the picture, as usual, tells the story better than any few hundred words:

Georgewillwavesoffglobalwarming

How to Change the World–By Making a Profit

Al Gore and David Blood have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today on the topic of sustainability and accounting for environmental costs as part of good business practice, according to Environmental Economics.

Unfortunately, the op-ed itself is safely locked away from public view behind a firewall, but we can glean some idea of the intent from this press release from November 2004, when Gore and Blood (jeez, what a pair of names) launched a new investment fund.

The fund is called Generation Investment Management, and it has set out to "fully integrate sustainability research into its fundamental equity analysis."

Blood turns out to be a former vice-president at Goldman Sachs, the astoundingly successful Wall St. corporate finance firm. In the release, he declares that:

Sustainability combines the principles of economic growth, environmental stewardship, and social accountability.

This has always been central to Gore’s brand of environmentalism. Starry-eyed dreamers may recall that back in the 2000 presidential campaign, Gore stumped around the country insisting that green investments would lead to numerous profit-making opportunites…much like General Electric’s new "ecoimagination" campaign. At about this time last year, GE announced they were investing $1.5 billion in the effort, which was lauded by the likes of Treehugger.

GE is far from alone. As Oikos (an environmental economics blog in Australia) points out, Zengrong Shi of China has in just a few short years has become one of the world’s richest men…selling photovoltaics.

As Forbes puts it in a profile about the newly-coined billionaire:

Photovoltaics vendor Zhengrong Shi is worth only $2.2 billion. If he could just make solar power cost-effective, he could be really rich.

Calls to save the biosphere have not proven very effective when it comes to changing human behavior, and warnings of calamity (such as Rachel Carson’s "Silent Spring") have been only slightly more successful.

Maybe Gore is right. Maybe it takes a money-making opportunity to open peoples’ eyes.