NOTE TO U.S. MEDIA: Please don’t fall for the Bush administration’s final climate trick—don’t ignore these important studies.
——-
Normally, when an administration wants to bury bad news—such as a government report it doesn’t like—the story gets released Friday afternoon. That ensures minimal media coverage. For news it really doesn’t like, the Friday of a three-day weekend is ideal.
So what subject matter is so abhorrent it would motivate the Bush administration to release multiple reports simultaneously the Friday before the four-day weekend that culminates in their loss of power, and when they can be certain the media will be focused on other matters?
Answer: The impact of human-caused global warming on Americans—arguably the single most taboo subject in the entire Bush administration. For eight years they have avoided their statutory obligation to detail the impacts of climate change on this country. And they have systematically muzzled government climate scientists from discussing those impacts with the public or the media.
It was easier to find people in the Bush administration to talk about torture or warrantless wiretaps, than it was to get someone to speak on (or off) the record on the likely impact of Bush’s policy of unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions on Americans.
On Friday January 16, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program actually released four major Synthesis and Assessment reports. You may remember the last report the CCSP released—U.S. Geological Survey stunner: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely “substantially exceed” IPCC projections, SW faces “permanent drying” by 2050. I was told by scientists knowledgeable about the CCSP process that all of the major impact reports were slowed down in the review process to make sure they came out after the election.
So what are the reports the Bushies have tried to bury? From the CCSP website:
Final Report of Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.1 (Coastal Sensitivity to Sea-Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region) is posted online. See also press release from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and EPA web-page. (posted 16 Jan 2009)
Final Report of Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.2 (Thresholds of Climate Change in Ecosystems) is posted. See also press release from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). (posted 16 Jan 2009)
Final Report of Synthesis and Assessment Product 2.3 (Aerosol properties and their impacts on climate) is posted online. See also press release from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). (posted 16 Jan 2009)
Final Report of Synthesis and Assessment Product 1.2 (Past Climate Variability and Change in the Arctic and at High Latitudes) is posted. See also press release from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). (posted 16 Jan 2009)
These are all substantive and comprehensive studies, almost on a par with the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment.
The sea-level report warns, “Most coastal wetlands in the mid-Atlantic would be lost if sea level rises one meter in the next century.” If the report has a weakness, it’s that it is still mired in the IPCC’s outdated and incomplete projection. The CCSP report considers one-meter sea-level rise by 2100 its extreme scenario, and actually focuses on two considerably milder scenarios, when the latest science and its own December report makes clear a one meter rise by 2100 is hardly a worst-case scenario for this country.
“The Arctic and High Latitudes” report concludes its discussion of Arctic ice loss:
Shrinkage that was both similarly large and rapid has not been documented over at least the last few thousand years ... The recent ice loss does not seem to be explainable by natural climatic and hydrographic variability on decadal time scales, and is remarkable for occurring when reduction in summer sunshine from orbital changes has caused sea-ice melting to be less likely than in the previous millennia since the end of the last ice age. The recent changes thus appear notably anomalous ...
Canadian media wrote one of the few stories on the study, headlined, “Climate warming ‘highly unusual’ says new study: Findings counter argument that melt is part of climate cycle”:
A major U.S. government report on Arctic climate, prepared with information from eight Canadian scientists, has concluded that the recent rapid warming of polar temperatures and shrinking of multi-year Arctic sea ice are “highly unusual compared to events from previous thousands of years.”
The findings, released Friday, counter suggestions from skeptics that such recent events as the opening of the Northwest Passage and collapse of ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic are predictable phenomena that can be explained as part of a natural climate cycle rather than being driven by elevated carbon emissions from human activity.
The U.S. public deserves to know what the latest science says about recent Arctic warming.
The Thresholds of Climate Change in Ecosystems report is sufficiently interesting and important and long that I will address it in a separate post after the inauguration.
Let me end with a quote from the Arctic report:
The past tells us that when thresholds in the climate system are crossed, climate change can be very large and very fast. We cannot rule out that human-induced climate change will trigger such events in the future.
The time to act is now.
For more on the CCSP reports and muzzling by the Bushies, see the excellent watchdog website, ClimateScienceWatch, starting with this post by Anne Polansky.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
View as Flat
stevenearlsalmony Posted 10:16 pm
20 Jan 2009
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1 ...
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
http://www.panearth.org
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Pompey Road Posted 12:38 am
21 Jan 2009
Case in point the midnignt rule and regulation changes to EPA for George Bush's coal corporation buddies will accelerate the destruction of the appalachian mountains by the Mountain Top Removal method of mining.
The Bush/Cheney corporate greed orgy that really originated with the Regan trickle down, deregulation, greed is good orgy has finally led to the destruction of the free market they proclaimed as god. The gluttony of the few at the expense of the masses has brought the financial systems of the world to ruin and has destroyed the planet that sustains us all. As they rolled Dick Cheney out of D.C. and power and ushered in a new age of enlightenment the Corporate lobby must be destroyed as we now know it because it lays at the root of all that is evil and sick in government.
The money in freezers, the revolving door from government office to corporate office and right back to D.C. as a high salaried corporate lobbyist. Our government is broke and we won't fix it. Corporations not only influence legislation there have been cases lately where they actually write it and the their bought and paid for lackey's introduce the bill. 14,000 paid lobbyist shadowing all the representatives and sticking money in their campaign funds or blind trust. We complain about laws being passed the masses would have never signed off on and yet their representatives make laws and regulation changes detrimental to the welfare of the people and the planet. Why? Because this representative government has been hijacked by multinational
Corporations that owe no allegiance to the country, the planet or anything except their corporate greed.
The government we try to hold up as the light to the world today is not the same government brought into being by the founders of this country. Jefferson warned about the influence of the merchant class "multinational Corporations" Ike warned about the influence of the military industrial complex. Jefferson and the founding fathers never completely got it right. They developed the best checks and balance system they could for the time but never envisioned the power and influence of the multinational corporation and made no provisions to counter this influence in the constitution. We all have the right to petition the government but when the voice of the people is silenced and the ear of government only listens to the power elite and corporate interest you end up with the perverted hollowed out symbol of a representative government.
The shadow government is not being taken serious enough at the grassroots level, at the academic level, at the environmental level. The people will never be served, enlightenment and reason will be dominated by corporate dogma, the planet will lay in ruins if we don't as a country correct this corrupt anomaly that has wrapped it's tentacles around all branches of government. The voice of common sense and reason will not prevail even in the face of extinction while the oil and coal corporations have a choke hold on government.
Our new president whom I believe is a good man and of the people will not be able to get any of his alternative energy programs forwarded or funded. He will not be able to get the alternative energy and energy infrastructure programs funded. He will be as a salmon swimming up stream against a horde of corporate lobbyist thwarting his efforts at every turn. He will not be able to get the country off coal and oil. He will not be able to develop mass transit. The Wall Street lobby has already raided the treasury taking trillions with no oversight and the same people who broke the system have set themselves up to fix it. Obama will have to beg the same lobby who destroyed the financial system for the funding to fix the environment and to help him pass the legislation that they will see as detrimental to their corporate interest.
Such is life in a corpocracy!
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:52 am
21 Jan 2009
Anyway, great word smithing, I'm going to borrow "corpocracy"! "Corporate feudalism" is so 20th century.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Sam Wells Posted 1:52 am
21 Jan 2009
Onward through the fog
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Robco1 Posted 11:46 am
21 Jan 2009
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mwildfire Posted 11:49 am
21 Jan 2009
One place I think Pompey gets it wrong though--Obama WILL be able to fund alternative energy programs. But he'll be forced to also fund "clean coal" and nuclear research and ethanol--and we have no time left to waste on dead ends. We need to be going full speed ahead with the right projects, not dividing our resources between useful things and boondoggles.
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Robco1 Posted 12:05 pm
21 Jan 2009
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Pompey Road Posted 12:41 pm
21 Jan 2009
Pompey Road is a He, and gets carried away when he gets on his soap box.
One good sign today that Obama is on this, he come out strong on the lobby thing for his administrative branch. I will bet he takes this to the people if he has to for the legislative. I am impressed by this man.
Bad news corporate lobby has already got to some legislative people before he even introduces his recovery legislation. The 30 billion suggested for mass transit has already had 10 billion skimmed off for new Highway Construction. Like we need more roads for the gas guzzlers! I don't know if it was the oil lobby or GM but you can see the hand the corporate lobby all over this. They all should have to wear the overalls as they wear in NASCAR with their sponsors logo and patches on them. Then we could see who is buying all the legislation that gets passed.
I will give you he will get some of what he wants but it will be like pulling teeth and so much is going to be wasted.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Pompey Road Posted 12:56 pm
21 Jan 2009
You are catching on,
Gonna tell my age here but I remember back in the day when you had to cover you own R&D and bid on contracts against several other companies. Specs requirements plus deadlines for each phase of construction. Penalties for missing deadlines.
Dick Cheney no bid contracts for Haliburton, military procurement with extended deadlines, cost over runs and systems that don't even work. The corporate lobby has even ruined our government procurement system of anything government funded. Earmarks and pork with everybody at the trough.
Change we need, How about going back to competitive bidding and some transparency when letting these contracts out.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Backcut Posted 2:38 pm
21 Jan 2009
Sounds like bribery to me! So much for "change", eh?!? Or pocket change?!?!?
Both sides do it but, so soon in the new Administration?
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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WarMaker Posted 6:14 am
22 Jan 2009
I've worked in some of the most polluted places
in Canada and of course big business was at the forefront of it all. Would'nt that be something if they could all be held accountable.
"Wishfull Thinking"
ML.
PS: "It is Cowardice to perceive
what is right but not do it."
--Confucius--
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tmullins Posted 12:21 pm
22 Jan 2009
http://www.wisecountyissues.com
Hannity shut the fuck up !
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rckoegel Posted 12:11 am
27 Jan 2009
"The shadow government is not being taken serious enough at the grassroots level, at the academic level, at the environmental level. The people will never be served, enlightenment and reason will be dominated by corporate dogma, the planet will lay in ruins if we don't as a country correct this corrupt anomaly that has wrapped it's tentacles around all branches of government. The voice of common sense and reason will not prevail even in the face of extinction while the oil and coal corporations have a choke hold on government."
it would be much easier to replace the corporations who hold sway over our political system, than it would be to change their ability to do so by way of that very system.
if you cant ask a wolf to stop eating your sheep, shoot it! by this i mean replace it with a system of locally managed and operated, but nationally and internationally associated, non-profit cooperative organizations.
give control over the production of goods and the provision of services to those who use and need them; this will leave only the judicial system for governments to legislate!
Cooperatism > Capitalism: with Capitalism a few people control the means to produce goods and accrue wealth, Cooperatism is precisely the opposite.
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Pompey Road Posted 2:26 am
27 Jan 2009
rckoegel,
Replacing a multinational corporation is no easy task and even this can be contributed to the dangerous animal called a lobbyist. In accordance with pure capitalism the inefficient and failed companies, corporations and individuals are supposed to be cannibalized or simply self destruct. The efficient and the profitable will rise to the top and replace them. Capitalist Darwinism in a representative democracy. In a Corpocracy the inefficient and failed institutions can ensure there survival by employing lobbyist. Wall Street was rewarded for making poor financial decisions and unwarranted risk taking. The real assets of the top players were not put at risk because they had lobbyist who could buy the Wall Street bailout to make the American Tax payer pay for all the trillions lost by the corrupt and inefficient.
The Auto Corporations that have failed to provide a fuel efficient reliable automobile and stay competitive with foreign competition were not allowed to fail, for the most part because of well placed lobbyist. None of the business models or corporations that would have failed before the Representative Government was allowed to become a Corpocracy are swept out of the way to allow the new and efficient to emerge. The corporate lobby buys the necessary rule & regulation changes or the legislation that allows the corrupt, the inefficient and the status quo to survive. A lobbyist is a parasite on government, especially representative style democracy's that will eventually destroy its host.
It was said when all of this bailout of Wall Street, Banks, and inefficient corporations was sold to us a few months ago by the Wall Street, Banking and Corporate lobby that capitalism only works when bailed out by socialism. Just another cheap shot at socialist democracies that see the person or the citizen as important as the corporate entity. Socialist Democracies or socialist style representative governments are seen as not being as efficient as pure capitalist representative governments . We will never know because the corporate lobby has changed our model or government to a corpocracy with only the corporate interest at heart and no regard for the working or middle class. You as an individual are seen as only a consumer or a worker by the corporate and because they are multinational and have no specific allegiance to country you are in completion as American worker with other workers in other countries to reduce labor and legacy cost. In a corpocracy you either a tax payer or an unfunded liability and in competition with the corporate who lobby are for the corporate and have no regard for the individual, the working, middle class or the environment.
Provisions of the constitution that allow all to petition the government was the corporate lobbyist foot in the door and what keeps the door wide open for them. You will have to understand that under current law the corporation is seen as a person. I have no problem with that as long as it is for liability or tax purposes even if some see the later as a form of tax evasion. The problem being is that the corporate person with the 14,000 paid lobbyist petitioning has a deliberate desire to protect only the interest of the corporate. They have no regard for the people they see only as consumers or only a part of the overall cost of producing or selling their product.
It may not be as desirable to do away with the corporate as it would be to change the way they are counted as a person. Obama has made some inroads on the administrative side with lobby reform and is trying to include some provisions for transparency and anti lobby rules in his new Economic Recovery Bill he is sending to congress. Unless real lobby reform is done first the Economic Part of the Recovery Bill will be slanted toward the corporate. The alternative energy portion of the Economic Recovery Bill will be stripped out for corporate interest and billions wasted on earmarks and non relevant pork. The portion that was supposed to be for rail and mass transit will be skimmed off in the same fashion.
Real, Meaningful, Substantial Lobby Reform to make the corporation person be counted the same as the individual or the corpocracy will cannibalize more than just the Representative style of government. The corpocracy will cannibalize the planet if not reigned in. The big planet killing part of the corpocracy big oil and big coal will spend billions to maintain the status quo. A very difficult task indeed to kill the corporate and we need the economic engine to survive. Change the rules that created the Corpocracy and it will have the same effect.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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howardgw Posted 12:28 am
28 Jan 2009
Howard Wilshire
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Pompey Road Posted 12:54 am
28 Jan 2009
This does not take into account we may at some point learn how to remove co2 from the atmosphere. A daunting task now I know but a thousand years is a long time in human development and technical advances. I still am an avid advocate of reducing co2 but does anyone know of any attempts or study's involving removing co2 from the atmosphere.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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