And the Award Goes To...
"We all are. Act accordingly."
Martin Scorsese (enjoyed watching my old neighborhood on film), Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Hudson, and Eddie Murphy should walk away with Oscar Gold. However, there are other awards being handed out this weekend as well.
From EDF's Global Warming Globie Awards:
Do your part and write your own acceptance speech. If not for us, then for our children.Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels wins Best Performance by a State or
Local Official for spearheading a national effort to organize America's
cities to cut carbon dioxide pollution 7% below 1990 levels by 2012.
US-CAP walks away with Best Performance in the Corporate
World for calling for immediate, effective global warming legislation
in Congress which represents a real game changer in our global warming
campaign.
In contrast, Exxon wins Worst Performance by a
Corporation. In spite of recent softening in its corporate rhetoric
against global warming action, ExxonMobil wasn't able to obscure its decade-long
and multi-million dollar public relations campaign to undermine the scientific
consensus on global warming.
By calling global warming the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humankind,
Senator Inhofe has solidified his legacy as one of the leading global warming
deniers of our time and lays claim to Most Egregious Contribution to
Public Ignorance and Denial. His kids must be so proud.
posted by kate @ 8:02 AM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Already a lock for a Globie nomination next year: The Minnesota State Legislature. This week they passed an alternative energy bill that requires all electricity providers in the state to use alternative sources (like wind or solar) to generate at least 25% of their power by 2025. An exception was made for the largest electric company, which serves over half the state's customers. Excel Energy must us alternative sources for 30% of its generation needs by 2020.
That and Al Franken.
You guys rock.
Are you liberal democrats forgetting someone??? Is it b/c he is a republican?
California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger and his bold plan that was rocketed thru the legislature and signed by him to lower carbon emissions levels significantly.
Besides that, I wont get into the whole "anyone who is skeptical that its the humans fault virtually alone that the earth is warming, and i wont get into that lunatic AL Franken either.
But, I urge anyone to watch 2 shows on the history channel. One is "The Big Chill: THe Little Ice Age" and the show on the life, history, and future of the sun. BOth shows show what are and could be MANY other causes of the 1.6 degrees of warming that has occurred in the last 150 years, subsequent to the little ice age from 1300-1850, which was subsequent to the time in 1100 to 1300 where the earth temp was approximately 3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today.
I see no doubt that humans are "contributing" to global warming, but to say that humans are the actual cause ignores the sun variations, and the earth variations that have been happening for about 5 billion years thus far.
The only human contribution I would give is the difference between the typ warming speed, and the current warming speed, which is about 20%. Spending money to cut emissions is fine as long as EVERY country is required to do it, and it doesnt cost so much that it wrecks the world economy. Cutting a percentage off of 20% of the contribution of warming is a very small amount.
Now i will turn the floor over to the liberals who will most certainly call me and my presentation of the facts as completely political, and will then call me a holocaust denier, b/c i base my analysis on a comprehensive compilation of the "facts" about the sun and natural earth cycle versus recent temp changes.
So you think Arnold should be nominated for a Globie for not making a dime's worth of difference in something that isn't a problem anyway?
Global warming aside, it wouldn't hurt either the planet or our economy to get off the steady oil diet. Environmental protection is at its heart a moral issue, not a scientific one. Either you think it's ok to squander finite resources and soil the planet for the generations to come, or you don't.
BTW, I think Arnold has done many fine things for California. He'd probably be a good nominee for a Globie if he could get a better handle on the water and sprawl issues.
port tampa,
For Arnold being nominated, i was solely basing it off of Kate's qualifications. I never said global warming wasnt a problem, although i think if we had two options of global cooling versus global warming, i would prefer warming. The Little Ice Age decreased the world population by about 60% over the 550 years. In a colder climate, the available land to produce food significantly declines.
However, your argument is a perfectly good argument to make. I am all for getting off the steady oil diet, but alternatives so far are not looking good (thus far). Most ethanol is about as dirty as gas was 35 years ago. Wind power uses about 70% of the energy in gas just to power the wind to produce the amount of energy off of wind. SOlar energy is only effective in Florida, CA, AZ, Texas, NM, and a few other states, and would not be a viable alternative elsewhere, and hydrogen, well that is a long way off, and we would be relying heavily on imports from Africa, which has an even more corrupt govt than middle eastern countries.
From the greenest car comments, you should see I am HEAVILY in favor of conservation and global air and water quality, and Im all for alternatives when ones start working that do less harm to the environment than oil drilling.
I had mentioned about ethanol, that many other countries are clearing forests just to produce grains for ethanol, which is worse than drilling underground. Natural gas, which emitts zero carbons, and renews itself underground, may possibly be a viable alternative for transportation.
As for sprawl in CA, that is more with local govts than state govts. States only have the authority to protect natural resources, streams, wetlands, etc. One local govt, like San Diego, says... ok, no more sprawl, and wont allow any further devt within the city. However, the suburbs choose to still develop, and thus, suburban sprawl. No local govt has the authority to tell the next local govt where they can develop. And they all want more tax money, so many unpopulated ones just let people develop so they can get some more tax revenue.
Rich-for a thorough understanding of the state's role in water supply, quality, and conservation in CA I recommend you subscribe to Western Water magazine. In CA, water and development have always been inextricably linked and the state has a great deal to do with it. Much of So. Cal would be uninhabitable without multistate, and international, agreements allocating the resources of the lower Colorado river and the state is the major player in distributing water from the north to the south.
I should not have left the impression that Arnold is totally clueless on water issues, he is actually an improvement over Gray Davis from some environmental aspects. However, I think he caves too easily to the urban interests who expect agriculture to bear the lion's share of water conservation-despite the fact that CA fields have been increasing production for decades without increasing water usage. (They still have a long way to go. Much of the irrigation water is delivered via open canals which lose a phenomenal amount through evaporation. Don't even get me started about CA as a rice growing venue.)
After abandoning water policy as a priority in his first term, last month Arnold announced a proposal to spend 35 billion dollars on shoring up the ill conceived levees on the Sacramento River which channelize the river and precipitate much of the flooding they are ostensibly designed to control. He also wants to build two new dams which would once again burden the central and northern parts of the state with adverse environmental effects to slake LA's thirst. (Though he rather cleverly says they are needed because global warming is having an impact on CA's rainfall. What is a liberal unschooled in development issues to think?)
Huh, that is totally backwards from how MI and FL was run, and how I am taught govt authority works in my profession. But then again, CA has much more needs than the typical state compared to the water supply.
rich-please do not take this as a slam on you, it is certainly not meant to be. Your comment is a great example of why both major parties are going to come to grief if they don't quit pandering to the South and get a better handle on the issues of the West. Things are indeed very different out there, and it's not just California. CA is just the most powerful player and arguably the most complicated.
Speaking of FL and water. I think it will be interesting to see if CA makes any movement on injecting reclaimed water into underground aquifiers. The technology is promising, but the unintended effects not thoroughly studied.
port tampa, I dont take it as a slam at all. For that matter, how would i know about california's differences in running things unless someone told me?
I think the pandering to the south is b/c there is a chance southern states will flip democrat or republican. Democrats know they cannot win without the south, and republicans know its their base. CA, however, is no swing state, so no one panders there, except in the primaries.
I disagree. We can win without the south. As long as we have the west.
And with me out there soon...well, it's just a foregone conclusion.
Kate,
2 things. One, if you follow voting patterns across the country, you will see during elections that how people in one state vote compared to the previous, the other states tend to follow. One state or 2-3 states do not vote 10% more democrat, while the rest vote the same as they did last time. It varies slightly, but not that much.
So, democrats will have to win FL, and probably Virginia before they will win NV, CO, or AZ. If you noticed the 2004 election, Bush won IN 59-40. In 2000 Bush won 57-42. COincidentally, FL went 2-3% more for bush, as did about 40 states. Im sure you see my point.
Second, after the 2008 election, in 2010, they will do a full census, and there are expected changes in the electoral vote distribution. NY is losing 2, MA is losing 1, PA is losing 1, IL is losing 1. FL is gaining 2, GA is gaining 1, TX is gaining 3. OH is also losing 2, and i consider that a state that is trending democrat. There are other states, but overall democrat states lose 6, swing states gain 2, and republican states gain 4. It makes it harder to win without the south.
Electorally VA can't really be counted as part of the south anymore, the shrines to Stonewall Jackson, Lee and Jeff Davis notwithstanding. Northern VA, formerly a Rep stronghold outside of the far inner DC suburbs, is trending Dem now and the residents don't consider themselves "southern." Though you can expect Tom Davis (R) to hold his seat in perpetuity (he plays well with others and brings home the bacon)he won't live forever and the metro statistical area now stretches practically to Richmond. Frank Wolf's seat, formerly considered decided in the Rep. primary will be a contest even while he's still in it. Surprising to me, both Wolf and Davis polled under 60% for the first time ever in '06 despite having a "marriage ammendment" on the ballot.
Thanks to the current war, and planned base realignments, the tidewater region and its vast military/industrial megalopolis continues to gain influence and is perhaps counter-intuitively not very inclined to vote Republican. It's the only part of the state outside of Northern VA where a significant % of workers belong to unions. The 3rd district's Bobby Scott (D), will hold his seat as long as he wants and now in his 8th term probably has decided not to seek higher office. He has time to spend raising money for others, and Drake (R) in the adjoining 2nd district is vulnerable. (I wonder if Obama has consulted him about "being black enough." The first African American elected to congress from VA since reconstruction, Scott is a Harvard undergrad, Boston College Law grad, and has a Filipino grandfather.)
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