Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Houston to Dumb Dumb: we have a problem

Yesterday, NASA's James Hansen spoke at the National Press Club of the need to radically alter carbon emissions within ten years (giving us only a couple of years to come up with the course of action). Hansen said failure to act may put us past the tipping point and yield irreversible changes to our planet, little things like species extinction and the disappearance of polar ice/rising sea levels.

Given we've got dumb dumb in office for nearly two more years, we really can't afford to wait for the next Administration to come up with solutions. Yet, part of Bush's energy policy is exactly what we don't want:

Hansen emphasized that because of coal's high carbon content, we cannot burn more any more of it, and no additional coal burning plants should be built; he said it will become clear, unless new and affordable technology emerges, that we are only going to have to tear them down in a few years. (someone once said coal is to clean energy what a twinkie is to health food.)

Bush plans to burn more of it, which should come as no surprise given his close ties to the coal industry, and he has attempted to slash funding for cleaner coal technology. And he may not be getting as much flak from NASA; the Bush Administration cut that part of the NASA budget in mid-2006, retroactive to the beginning of the budget year, according to Hansen.

I wonder if the founding fathers pictured something like this: author Michael Crichton can give misleading climate change testimony to eager ears on the (Republican-led) Hill, but any scientifically based climate change news coming from say, the director of NASA's Goddard Space Institute, has to be vetted first by the White House.

There should be a legal price to pay for blatantly disregarding evidence and mismanaging citizens' (the US and the globe's) welfare.

4 Comments:

At 1:00 PM, Blogger Paddy said...

It's got to get better soon...
PLEASE?

 
At 2:26 PM, Blogger Fernando said...

It's not paddy. TXU (biggest elect provider in Tx.) isn't building 18 dirty coal plants anymore in responce so the public outcry and the Stop the Coal Rush protests..... They are only building 10, maybe 11. They are being bought by a huge consortium of private equity firms which of coarse means not publicly traded so it only benefits the oligarcy.

The new TXU management will be advised by James Baker I guess so it dovetails with Carlyl. This all means that the 8 or 9 they won't build now, they will build later. They are also buying up the largest part of wind energy.

We will all be slaves once this private equity consortium completely horizontally integrates to the next big solar discovery and it all becomes private intelectual property.

 
At 3:01 PM, Blogger Mike O'Leary said...

you've got great insights, Fernando, but you scare the hell out of me - hope you continue commenting all the same!

 
At 4:58 PM, Blogger GottaLaff said...

I feel so much better now (sarcasm).

"someone once said coal is to clean energy what a twinkie is to health food."

Coal is to clean energy what Bush's psychotic policies are to the mental and physical health of our country.

On a lighter note, coal is to clean energy what Jenna and Not Jenna are to role models for our youth.

Whaddy a want...I'm sneaking in Comments on the sly at work, hiding out from the teen inmates.

 

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