Month: April 2013

Climate activists must become economic activists–and vice versa

by David Atkins

President Obama headlined a fundraiser yesterday at the home of billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, the same person giving heart attacks to corporate Democrats and pliant media across the country. A key excerpt from his speech went as follows:

And the thing that I’m going to have to try to work to persuade the American people a little more convincingly on is this notion that there’s a contradiction between our economy and our environment is just a false choice — that if we invest now, we will create jobs, we will create entire new industries; other countries will be looking to catch up, they will be looking to import what we do. We will set the standard, and everybody else will have to adapt.

But — and I mentioned this to Tom and Kat and a few folks right before I came out here — the politics of this are tough. Because if you haven’t seen a raise in a decade; if your house is still $25,000, $30,000 underwater; if you’re just happy that you’ve still got that factor job that is powered by cheap energy; if every time you go to fill up your old car because you can’t afford to buy a new one, and you certainly can’t afford to buy a Prius, you’re spending 40 bucks that you don’t have, which means that you may not be able to save for retirement — you may be concerned about the temperature of the planet, but it’s probably not rising to your number-one concern. And if people think, well, that’s shortsighted, that’s what happens when you’re struggling to get by. You’re thinking about what’s right in front of you, which is how do I fill up my gas tank and how do I feed my family.

And so part of what we’re going to have to do is to marry a genuine, passionate concern about middle-class families and everybody who is trying to get into the middle class to show them that we’re working just as hard for them as we are for our environmental agenda, and that we can bridge these things in a way that advances the causes of both. And that’s going to take some work.

But the most important thing that it’s going to take is people in Washington who are willing to speak truth to power, are willing to take some risks politically, are willing to get a little bit out ahead of the curve — not two miles ahead of the curve, but just a little bit ahead of it. And that’s why your presence here is so important.

So far so good. These are hard truths well spoken. It’s going to take a massive jobs program to solve the country’s economic problem and do our part to tackle the world’s climate problem, while also disincentivizing further oil imperialism abroad. It will be difficult to corral support for major action on climate without tying it to kitchen table economic action. And as I have mentioned before, creating climate-saving jobs isn’t just about engineers installing solar panels. Conservation and fossil fuel conversion can theoretically require a nearly endless stream of blue collar jobs needing no more than a high school education.

So what’s the problem? The President lays it out in his next paragraph:

Look, my intention here is to try to get as much done with the Republican Party over the next two years as I can, because we can’t have perpetual campaigns. And so I mean what I say. I am looking to find areas of common ground with Republicans every single day. I want to make sure that we’re working together to stabilize our finances. And I think actually that we can come up with a fiscal deal that instead of lurching from crisis to crisis every three months, we lay the groundwork for long-term growth — controlling our deficits, controlling our debt, but also making sure we can invest in our future. I want to get an immigration deal done. I want to find some common-sense gun safety legislation that we can get done. And I do believe that there are well-meaning Republicans out there who care about their kids just as passionately as we do.

Those are pretty words, but self-contradictory. Policymakers who are obsessed with controlling deficits and debt during a time of economic weakness and high unemployment cannot possibly address both economics and climate simultaneously. Without heavy government expenditures, the only available action on climate requires conservation and conversion approaches like carbon taxation, trading mechanisms and regulatory enforcement that are absolutely necessary to the survival of our species, but will also perforce hurt economic growth standing alone. Action on climate can and should be a great economic boon, but only with an Apollo program style investment.

As long as politicians on both sides of the aisle are accepting the slash and burn economics of the sequester and talking about the supposed need to make cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, there will be little to no ability to convince the public of our ability to tackle climate change in a way that is a short-term net economic positive.

Deficit politics are climate politics, and vice versa.

The critical and desperate nature of the climate challenge, taken together with the wide variety of jobs that tackling it can produce, is the easiest and likeliest reason to sway government officials to undertake a serious jobs agenda. Progressives whose primary agenda is controlling unemployment and income inequality should be making climate change a top priority for this reason. It’s already abundantly clear that despite the lip service, precious few national politicians care enough about bringing down unemployment to contemplate a serious Keynesian agenda. Climate change mitigation can provide an external impetus to make it happen.

Climate activists, meanwhile, must know that no significant action on global warming will happen until the austerity fever in Washington has broken. There simply isn’t the political will to take action without a complementary economic angle.

As of this moment, progressive activists on economics and on climate change tend to be separated into their own silos. Combined, they might just have a powerful enough argument and effective enough coalition to break through the oil-and-austerity driven myopia of our political elites.

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Will chocolate save us?

by digby

I wish I knew how to get people to care about climate change. It just seems like an uphill battle to make it immediate enough and personal enough for them to care. But I was reading an article in the LA Times the other day that made me think there is at least one fact that might wake people up. It referenced a report by the International Cocoa Organization that sent a cold shiver through me:

Half of the world’s cocoa comes from the West African nations of Ivory Coast and Ghana. An expected temperature rise of more than two degrees Celsius by 2050 will render many of the region’s cocoa-producing areas too hot for the plants that bear the fruit from which chocolate is made, says a new study from the Colombia-based International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

“What we are saying is that if we don’t take any action, there won’t be sufficient chocolate around in the future,” said Peter Läderach, the report’s lead author.

Do we really want to live in a world with insufficient chocolate?

O’Reilly abandons the bible thumpers for the secular clown posse


by digby

Just three months ago Bill O’Reilly had some tough words for the “secular progressives” also known as the “secular clown posse:”

Now he’s going after Laura Ingram for objecting to his characterization of “bible thumpers” failing to make a compelling …. secular argument.

Poor Bill. He confused.

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Politico sees no policy, hears no policy, speaks no policy

by David Atkins

The headmast of Politico is a four-page story about Tom Steyer, an climate change activist and billionaire who is promising to throw primary cash against pro-Keystone Pipeline Democrats.

The story spends a lot of time with fretting and gnashing of teeth about how this one individual will make the horrible, horrible “mistake” of shifting Democrats too far to the left, just as the Koch brothers have shifted Republicans to the right–as if that somehow hasn’t been a successful strategy for Charles and David Koch, or as if one liberal billionaire’s efforts amount to much of anything against the entire weight of the conservative establish and fossil fuel industry money.

But unmentioned throughout the lengthy article is the actual policy.

Here is what the Keystone Pipeline functionally means:

It projects that Canada will double its current tar sands production over the next decade to more than 1.8 million barrels a day. That rate will mean cutting down some 740,000 acres of boreal forest — a natural carbon reservoir. Extracting oil from tar sands is also much more complicated than pumping conventional crude oil out of the ground. It requires steam-heating the sands to produce a petroleum slurry, then further dilution.

One result of this process, the ministry says, is that greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector as a whole will rise by nearly one-third from 2005 to 2020 — even as other sectors are reducing emissions. Canada still hopes to meet the overall target it agreed to at Copenhagen in 2009 — a 17 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2020. If it falls short, as seems likely, tar sands extraction will bear much of the blame.

Just how much emissions are we talking about? About A lot:

Recognizing the proposed Project ‘s lifetime is expected to be at least fifty years, we believe it is important to be clear that under at least one scenario, the extra GHG emissions associated with this proposed Project may range from 600 million to 1.15 billion tons CO2-e, assuming the lifecycle analysis holds over time”

Over 1 billion tons of equivalent CO2 emissions is a substantial chunk of emissions. We recently discussed The Critical Decade report produced by the Climate Commission established by the Australian government. Their report concluded that humanity can emit not more than 1 trillion tonnes of CO2 between 2000 and 2050 to have a probability of about 75% of limiting temperature rise to 2°C or less. According to the latest data, between 2000 and 2010 we emitted approximately 300 billion tons of CO2, so after 20% of the allotted timeframe, we’re already over 30% of the way through the allotted emissions.

Policy matters. I’m certainly no fan of capricious billionaires dictating policy. But as long as we’re going to have a system that’s entirely bought and paid for by rich people, there’s nothing wrong with rich people who have a moral compass on something besides social issues getting into the game. Treating Koch Brother money to protect their ill-gotten riches as functionally equivalent to a philanthropist concerned about the future of the planet is moral insanity. As Steyer says:

He’s even been compared to Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialist brothers whose political spending on pro-fossil-fuel, anti-regulatory causes and candidates has been targeted by liberals as a threat to democracy.

Steyer bristles at the comparison.

“The Kochs are doing something that is in their own self-interest. If the laws that support the fossil fuel industry stay in place, then they’re going to be a lot richer,” Steyer said.

Though Steyer has backed venture capital firms that invest in renewable energy companies, he said he has no vested business interest in expanding renewable energy and tackling climate change.

On the other hand, Steyer cited the tea party movement — which was organized with assistance from deep-pocketed conservative groups, including those linked to the Kochs — as a model for his work, praising it as “very well organized” despite his stark disagreements with its agenda.

He said he doesn’t have any specific plans for launching campaigns in 2014, though “it would be shocking if we didn’t.” While Steyer says that “my party affiliation starts with a ‘D,’” he makes no apologies for targeting a fellow Democrat in the Massachusetts race, calling the fate of the Earth’s climate more important than party labels.

No kidding. If one smart billionaire pushing Democrats to take climate change seriously is suddenly the Villager equivalent of the Koch Brothers and Freedomworks rolled into one, we’re in big trouble as a species.

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So we have to put up with lamebrain private yahoos depriving us of our rights too?

by digby

When I wrote my piece this morning about gun proliferation activists intimidating people and making them unwilling to exercise their first amendment rights, I hadn’t seen this:

The National Rifle Association’s security guards gained notoriety earlier this year when, escorting NRA officials to a hearing, they were upbraided by Capitol authorities for pushing cameramen. The thugs were back Tuesday when the NRA rolled out its “National School Shield” — the gun lobbyists’ plan to get armed guards in public schools — and this time they were packing heat.

About 20 of them — roughly one for every three reporters — fanned out through the National Press Club, some in uniforms with gun holsters exposed, others with earpieces and bulges under their suit jackets.

In a spectacle that officials at the National Press Club said they had never seen before, the NRA gunmen directed some photographers not to take pictures, ordered reporters out of the lobby when NRA officials passed and inspected reporters’ briefcases before granting them access to the news conference.

The antics gave new meaning to the notion of disarming your critics.

By journalistic custom and D.C. law, of course, reporters don’t carry guns to news conferences — and certainly not when the person at the lectern is the NRA’s Asa Hutchinson, an unremarkable former congressman and Bush administration official whom most reporters couldn’t pick out of a lineup. But the NRA wasn’t going to leave any doubt about its superior firepower.

Free speech isn’t much of a “right” when people people who disagree with me are ostentatiously carrying a loaded gun. It’s bad enough that we are often deprived of our rights by the state’s authorities. Now we’re going to be deprived of them by yahoos who like to march around in uniforms and play soldier too?

This is, frankly, closer to revolutionary Che worship than all-American patriotism. But I’m going to guess these bozos don’t have a clue.

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They’re coming for your knives too folks

by digby

This is real:

The paid lobbyists for American Knife & Tool Institute, Victorinox Swiss Army and the Leatherman Tool Group were “instrumental” in getting the TSA to adopt a policy for their benefit. So it’s not about TSA’s “lack of resources” to keep aviation secure, but rather corporate profits for those who stand to benefit from this new policy.

Rep. Matt Salmon is pushing support for TSA’s change among his colleagues in the House. Kniferights.org is conveniently headquartered in his district. “Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz) is calling on his House colleagues to support the TSA policy allowing small knives onto aircraft, despite efforts from dozens of others in Congress to reverse this decision.” (From The Hill, APRIL 2, 2013)

“Knife Rights is doing its part. Knife Rights Chairman Doug Ritter and his Congressman, Rep. Matt Salmon, discussed this issue at length while attending the Monkey Muster, a knife event held recently by Knife Rights supporter Monkey Edge in Mesa, AZ. Rep. Salmon is a knife collector and enthusiast. He promised he’d stand strong against any effort to rescind the rules.” (FromAmmoLand.com, APRIL 2, 2013)

“The American Knife & Tool Institute, Victorinox Swiss Army and the Leatherman Tool Group were instrumental in getting TSA to adopt the change. Contact your legislators, let them know you support the TSA.” (FromBladeMag.com, APRIL 2, 2013)

Yes, there is a group called “Knife Rights.” They have a magazine and everything. And they are endorsed by all the important patriots:

“Knife Rights is the Second Front in Defense of the Second Amendment. They are the premier grassroots organization protecting our right to own knives. Those who love freedom need Knife Rights, so please join me in supporting their mission.”

— Wayne LaPierre, Exec. VP & CEO, NRA

I just don’t know what to say…

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The GOP is nothing if not practical: anti-abortion politics is non-negotiable for their base

by digby

Here’s more evidence that the Republican Party is “moderating” on these pesky social issues due to their shellacking in the last election.  This post is by Reince Preibus, Chairman of the Republican Party:

Media Covers up Democrat-Backed Planned Parenthood’s Support for Infanticide

Yep. We’re back to the infanticide propaganda, their go-to horror story to make people reflexively connect zygotes with the Gerber Baby and condemn Planned Parenthood as an institution of mass murder.

Anyway, I think we can all feel fairly confident that the War on Women has not been abandoned. They’re just regrouping. There is a very large faction of GOP voters for whom these culture war issues are the only issue. They aren’t strategists and savvy pragmatists. They are true believers whose only interest in politics stems from their deeply held belief that they must save the country from perdition. Maybe Democrats just think they’ll behave like other voters and come to some practical understanding that they can only expect half a loaf, but the Republicans know that’s not going to happen. These people’s politics are about life everlasting and the promise of Armageddon. They aren’t into compromise.

The Party, on the other hand, is nothing if not pragmatic. They know they need to keep these people under the tent.

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Why is common sense gun safety legislation so hard

by digby

David Frum thinks it’s odd that this isn’t already a requirement all over the country. So do I:

[New York Rep. Carolyn] Maloney’s “Firearm Risk Protection Act” requires gun buyers to have “a qualified liability insurance policy” before they are able to legally purchase a firearm.

It also calls for the federal government to impose a fine as much as $10,000 if a gun owner doesn’t have insurance on a firearm purchased after the bill goes into effect. “It shall be unlawful for a person who owns a firearm purchased on or after the effective date of this subsection not to be covered by a qualified liability insurance policy,” the bill text reads.

The bill would also make it a federal crime to sell a firearm to anyone without insurance. “For too long, gun victims and society at large have borne the brunt of the costs of gun violence,” Maloney said as she introduced the legislation. “My bill would change that by shifting some of that cost back onto those who own the weapons.”

Sounds reasonable. Needless to say, the NRA disagrees:

Chris Cox, the executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, told The Daily Caller that the bill is “ridiculous on its face, as it presumes law-abiding gun owners are guilty for merely exercising a fundamental, constitutional right.”

Yeah, well as a woman, that argument doesn’t carry a lot of weight with me. Fundamental, constitutional rights are in the eye of the beholder as is the “presumed guilt” of anyone who exercises them. (Of course, in the case of reproductive rights, these same people want to prohibit women from buying insurance, so we lose coming and going …)

But as a practical matter, this gun insurance seems like a winning proposition to me and I wonder why nobody’s proposed it before. After all:

I don’t drive as much now that I don’t commute every day, but I have a car and I’m required to carry liability insurance anyway. It’s not cheap.  Now, the founders didn’t explicitly write that we have a constitution right to drive a car, to be sure.  I think they can be forgiven for being unable to see into the future and know that the automobile would be invented. But we have established over the years that people must register their vehicles, meet certain licensing requirement and carry insurance because it’s a useful tool but it’s also dangerous and society has an interest in regulating them.

I’m afraid I cannot see why guns should not at least be subject to that much regulation.  It’s common sense.And I think the NRA should jump on this idea.  There’s money to be made.  And I’m quite sure that if this ever gets passed they’ll be the first ones making it.

Unfortunately, this is a long shot, as is all gun safety legislation. This pollster explains:

So why is Congress struggling to find common ground on an issue where nearly all Americans agree? One key reason is the potential for electoral retribution from the NRA. The group has instilled fear among some key senators that voting for background checks would have political consequences, the Post’s Philip Rucker and Ed O’Keefe report.

Another factor, argues political scientist Jonathan Bernstein, is that few Americans are taking to the streets to demand universal background checks. Ninety percent of people answering a phone survey the same way is not the same as hordes of voters protesting in the streets or badgering their congressmen.

The lopsided level of activism was clear in a January Pew Research poll, where respondents who prioritized gun rights were more than four times as likely as those backing gun control to donate money to an organization that takes a position on gun policy. More than four in 10 gun rights supporters (42 percent) reported participating in at least one type of political activism on the issue, compared with 25 percent of those prioritizing gun control. Activist groups supporting gun restrictions — notably the Michael Bloomberg-led Mayors’ Against Illegal Guns — have tried to change this dynamic. They promise to bring the fight over gun laws to the electoral battlefield, supporting candidates who agree with them and opposing those who don’t. But the fact that Congress is struggling to pass a law with near unprecedented support — and that popular proposals such as bans on assault weapons and high-capacity clips have been essentially taken off the table — indicates they are still

I’m going to take a wild guess that most people aren’t going to take to the streets to protest in favor of gun safety regulation as long as the gun rights leadership continues to sound like a bunch of lunatics (see: LaPierre, Wayne) and their followers show up to protest armed with loaded guns. They aren’t suicidal.

And neither are the politicians:

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) says she received death threats at her Manhattan office Tuesday over a piece of proposed gun control legislation.

According to Maloney, three phone calls were made to her Upper East Side office about an hour apart from each other, ABC reports. Disturbed by the phone calls, the congresswoman decided to skip an event where she was scheduled to present an award that night.

“They said they were going to kill me,” Maloney told The Daily News. “I couldn’t go. Who knows what could happen? I think any member of Congress would be scared after what happened to my good friend Gabby Giffords.”

Can we see what’s happening here?

I don’t know the answer, but when you have an armed movement that fetishizes the potential necessity of revolution against the government you can certainly understand why politicians and citizens alike might not be eager to put themselves in the metaphorical — and literal — line of fire. In this case, many people, including pols, probably feel that their best insurance policy is “don’t make trouble.”

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A welcome advance on Social Security

by David Atkins

Via Kevin Drum, the New America Foundation has responded to the austerity cult by proposing an expansion of Social Security:

We propose to replace most of the country’s current, inadequate, hybrid public and private retirement system with a two-part, wholly public system called Expanded Social Security. Expanded Social Security would have two distinct parts. The first part, Social Security A, would be similar to the current Social Security Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program, which provides a retirement benefit related to earnings. The second part of Expanded Social Security would be a new universal flat benefit, Social Security B, to supplement the traditional earnings-related benefit that would continue to be provided by Social Security A.

Drum notes, however, that it would cost 5% of GDP to accomplish it and require some sort of value added tax. Honestly, 1/20th of GDP doesn’t sound like a lot in order to ensure a decent, basic retirement income for all Americans. As a progressive, I’d be fine paying higher taxes for it.

But there’s certainly a sticker shock involved. Which is why the anti-austerity conversation can’t be separated from the income inequality conversation. When the wealthy swallow up all the productivity gains in an economy, it’s hard to ask average people to pitch in significantly extra for their own economic security. That money should by rights come from the people who have stolen all the GDP gains since 1980 in the first place.

And if those people threaten to flee the country, then it may be time for international law to deal with tax flight by the jet set.

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Literally doing God’s work

by digby

Is this an amazingly creature or what?

I think this is the only appropriate way to celebrate:

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