Wolverine’s Recent Comments

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  TVA Does Disservice To Public Power

  The TVA should be taken over by the federal government.  Unfortunately, the people of the southeast U.S., from slavery on, have shown that they're not morally competent to be in charge of their own affairs.  The TVA is a horribly bad actor in the public power arena, where some of us are trying to get our communities to go.  This must be a southern thing in general; LADWP is pretty evil, too.On TVA watchdogs arrested, harassed posted 8 months ago 3 Responses

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  Anyone Could See This Coming

  When Elliot Spitzer was replaced by Patterson, I commented here that this was a disaster for progressive politics in New York and the country generally, including the environment.  Spitzer would never have caved in to these pigs, but Patterson is neither progressive nor strong enough, so we get this result.

  I don't agree at all, Canis, that Patterson is cool.  Spitzer was cool, Patterson is just a typical liberal politician with a few progressive leanings.  Losing Spitzer was a disaster, and this is just one of many issues that will suffer because of it.

  Regardless of what anyone thinks of what Spitzer did, removing a politician from office because of personal behavior, regardless of how egregious that behavior that is, is just a way of removing those from office who people in power don't like.  Spitzer's use of prostitutes, which like drugs and gambling should be legal in the first place, was a ludicrous pretext for removing by far the most progressive and brave governor in the country.On New York governor goes in the tank for industry, backs away from climate plan posted 8 months ago 12 Responses

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  Canis

  You're one of my strong allies on this blog, but I have to totally disagree about Dave Roberts.  For example, I have never seen him call for people to simplify their lifestyles by giving up cars or at least driving a lot less.  And this guy lives in Seattle, a city with good public transit!  Dave also flies around, going to this or that environmental conference, even though it is well known that planes' emissions of greenhouse gases, among other things like noise and environmentally sensitive lands used for runways and airports, make flying an extremely environmentally harmful way to travel.

  I do not make these comments to pick on Dave.  Unfortunately, his point of view and actions are typical of the majority of people who've made global warming their main cause.  Most of these people are not even what I consider to be environmentalists, because they don't care about any other environmental issues, because they don't want to prioritize the environment but instead just childishly demand that someone else do something (such as invent some magical technology) to solve the problem, and because they refuse to attack the root of the problem, which is unnatural human emissions that cause air pollution.

  Dave is by far at his best when he analyzes corporate and government propaganda and bad actions, and he provides excellent analysis there.  But as an Earth First!er, his attitudes are exactly what we found wrong with the mainstream enviro groups.  To some extent we are allies, but we Earth First! types often find ourselves at best taking much stronger positions and at worst being on the opposite side on certain issues.On 50 green and civic groups roll out tough climate principles posted 8 months ago 10 Responses

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  Priorities, Priorities

  Absolutely nothing has been done to reverse human-caused climate change, despite the hand wringing and outright lies of certain politicians.  The facts are that 1) every country's greenhouse gas emissions are rising, not falling or even remaining the same and 2) the latest report showed that even if humans totally stopped all unnatural greenhouse gas emissions immediately, the Earth is going to suffer devastating effects of human-caused global climate change over the next 1,000 years because, 3) people are far too fixated on money and business and not anywhere near concerned enough about the environment, and 4) people are not willing to make the so-called sacrifices needed in order to stop unnaturally emitting massive amounts of greenhouse gases.

  It's all well and good to sit around pontificating about what needs to be done, in fact doing so is necessary in order to know what to do and/or not do.  But we've known this for decades and human behavior has not changed one iota.  For example, it was reported in this week's news that states are going to use the money they'll be getting for transportation in the stimulus package to build more road, widen roads, and repair roads.  If these jerks really cared about global warming, the money would instead go to public transit and other projects that would get people out of cars.

  People who demand solutions to global warming but are not willing to change their behavior in order to stop or greatly reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions are like spoiled children who want to have their cake and eat it, too.  This is the type of crap we've been getting in Grist for years, led by people like Dave Roberts, and I'm sick to death of it.  Why not report on some environmental problems that people are actually willing to do something about?On 50 green and civic groups roll out tough climate principles posted 8 months ago 10 Responses

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  Bart Is Right

  But I'd go a lot further.  What Obama said is that we can have our cake and eat it, too.  This lie has perpetuated support for the psychotic and cancerous quest for endless growth, as if the Earth and its other forms of life were infinite.  By going along with this big lie in public, Obama is either being strategic and actually knows that endless growth cannot continue, or he actually believes it and is being just as foolish as everyone else.  Let's hope that it's the former.On Obama says there's no need to choose between sustainability and the economy posted 8 months, 1 week ago 9 Responses