Month: September 2016

Bridge fuel or scam fuel? Methane energy emissions surpass coal, but oil emissions rising

by Gaius Publius

Methane (“America’s clean natural gas”) is being touted and sold as the “bridge fuel” from carbon emissions from all sources, including oil. In fact, methane is turning out to be a bridge fuel away from coal only, a bridge fuel that’s having almost no effect on overall emissions. See the charts below and note the rise of emissions from petroleum as methane emissions replace coal emissions.

In the meantime total CO2 emission in the U.S from all sources is essentially flat:

Methane may be a bridge fuel from coal, but it’s not a bridge to fewer overall emissions, not by a long shot.

This news comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (which is touting methane, by the way):

Energy-related CO2 emissions from natural gas surpass coal as fuel use patterns change

Energy-associated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from natural gas are expected to surpass those from coal for the first time since 1972. Even though natural gas is less carbon-intensive than coal, increases in natural gas consumption and decreases in coal consumption in the past decade have resulted in natural gas-related CO2 emissions surpassing those from coal. EIA’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook projects energy-related CO2 emissions from natural gas to be 10% greater than those from coal in 2016….

In 2015, natural gas consumption was 81% higher than coal consumption,
and their emissions were nearly equal. Both fuels were associated with
about 1.5 billion metric tons of energy-related CO2 emissions in the
United States in 2015.

Three points about this announcement:

First, it’s good that coal is being used less and less, but coal still has a large emissions footprint, as this 2006 chart shows.

Second, reducing the use of coal is a mixed blessing. Coal emissions (poisonously) contain particulate matter (various kinds of soot, or as scientists say, “aerosols”) that in part act to reduce global warming because they tend to reflect some of the sun’s energy back into space before it hits the earth and becomes heat. Dr. Michael Mann has a fuller explanation here.

Bottom line, if we don’t reduce coal use, Mann estimates we “lock in” +2°C global warming likely in the early 2030s, as atmospheric CO2 reaches 450 ppm. If we (somehow, miraculously) do eliminate coal use, we lock in +2°C global warming as soon as atmospheric CO2 reaches 405 ppm, a level we’ve already crossed on the monthly chart (source and discussion here). Climate people call the use of coal a “Faustian bargain.”

Third, look again at the total emissions chart above. People, especially in government (like the EIA) and the energy industry, like to tout the CO2 emissions reduction “since 2005.” That reduction was (a) caused almost completely by the global slowdown in economic activity due to the financial crisis that followed, and (b) not much of a reduction, unless you eliminate most of the bottom of the chart to exaggerate the change (as here).

Is it an emergency yet?

Yes. For one thing, methane is not a bridge fuel. I’m willing to bet money that no prospective investor in a methane-burning energy facility is being told that the facility will be torn down in 10 years and replaced with something else, like a zero-carbon power plant. On the contrary, I think investors are being told that putting money into new methane (natural gas) infrastructure is a long-term profit-maker. No bridge fuel for us; just the words.

And it probably doesn’t hurt the industry’s future that Exxon is the “largest natural gas producer in the U.S.”

But more to the point, we just don’t have the time, even if methane were used as a true bridge fuel. Atmospheric CO2 is accelerating, with 2014 and 2015 being named, successively, “the hottest year on record.” Also, the 10 warmest years in the historical record all occurred since 1998. If we don’t put the brakes on now — the real brakes, not just the rhetorical ones — it won’t matter who’s president for the next eight years, Clinton, Sanders, Trump or Genghis Khan. They’ll all be powerless to stop what everyone can see coming and is panicked about.

For more on why a “WWII-style mobilization” is both possible and necessary, see the section “The Zero Carbon Economy, a Rationing Regime that Works” here. To work to build a Mobilize Now awareness, you might start here.

(A version of this piece appeared at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here.)

GP
 

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And the home of the paranoid
by Tom Sullivan

Donald Trump, the man whose “university” is accused of bilking thousands of students (in New York alone) out of tens of thousands of dollars, who faces federal racketeering charges over the scam, who stands accused in lawsuits of stiffing hundreds of everyday tradesmen out of pay they are owed, and who, fact-checkers attest, lies more than he tells the truth, that man is warning he might be cheated on November 8.

Thomas B. Edsall writes in the New York Times about Trump’s and his coterie’s preemptive strike against losing face in losing the presidential election in November. For months they have coached supporters to believe that if Trump loses the election, it is only because he and they have been cheated. If the election is close, they are likely to harden in this view.

“This is a potentially dangerous outcome for the country,” Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver, told Edsall:

Part of the reason that our nation has been relatively free of political violence is that losers of contests have nearly always accepted their loss and opposed the victor through legitimate means, such as challenging them in future elections or working against their agenda in Congress. The 2000 election was very close and obviously very controversial, but Al Gore nonetheless conceded after the Supreme Court’s ruling. Were Trump and his supporters to continue to argue that the election had been stolen from them, it would mean that they reject nonviolent solutions to political differences. It could jeopardize future elections, undermine the legitimacy of the federal government, and create an environment in which political violence becomes more likely.

From the alt-right fringe to prominent Republican figures, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and Ann Coulter have suggested a Republican loss means the Democratic president is illegitimate. But then, the right has acted as though that is the case at least since Bill Clinton first took office. Any Democrat is illegitimate. The only real American presidents are Republican ones. Thirty years of hyping unseen “voter fraud” laid the foundation the current crop of right-wing conspiracy theorists have built upon.

Citing Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 classic, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Edsall observes how trenchant Hofstadter’s description is of the afflictions of the congenitally “disenfranchised.” Hofstadter:

In American experience ethnic and religious conflict have plainly been a major focus for militant and suspicious minds of this sort, but class conflicts also can mobilize such energies. Perhaps the central situation conducive to the diffusion of the paranoid tendency is a confrontation of opposed interests which are (or are felt to be) totally irreconcilable, and thus by nature not susceptible to the normal political processes of bargain and compromise. The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular social interest—perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of its demands—are shut out of the political process. Having no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception that the world of power is sinister and malicious fully confirmed. They see only the consequences of power—and this through distorting lenses—and have no chance to observe its actual machinery. A distinguished historian has said that one of the most valuable things about history is that it teaches us how things do not happen. It is precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop. He has a special resistance of his own, of course, to developing such awareness, but circumstances often deprive him of exposure to events that might enlighten him—and in any case he resists enlightenment.

It is an old saw that the most important thing to know is what you don’t know. It is important to know “how things do not happen,” as in how elections do and do not operate. In the same way Naomi Klein described, that in times of crisis people put into use whatever ideas are lying around, the paranoid right, rather than admit not knowing, fills in the gaps of what they don’t know with whatever fantasies are lying around. Fox News and talk radio have made trafficking in fantasies their business model. In this way, the paranoid make themselves susceptible to being conned and to conning themselves.

Their champion this year is a man Charles Blow describes as lying “with a ferocious abandon.” The New Yorker‘s David Remnick said of Trump:

Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President, does not so much struggle with the truth as strangle it altogether. He lies to avoid. He lies to inflame. He lies to promote and to preen. Sometimes he seems to lie just for the hell of it. He traffics in conspiracy theories that he cannot possibly believe and in grotesque promises that he cannot possibly fulfill. When found out, he changes the subject — or lies larger.

And in the home of the paranoid, that’s just how they like it.

2 Thessalonians 2:

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

So, that went well

by digby

Now THAT looks like a president, amirite?

So eight of the first nine questions at the Commander in Chief forum were about Clinton’s emails. According to the press she was defensive and irritated do some reason and therefore blew it. Then when she tried to answer complicated questions about Iran, Matt Lauer interrupted her and said he didn’t have much time left and a lot of other questions.

Then Trump came on and babbled incoherently making the Fact Checkers heads explode but it won’t matter. The consensus is that it was a tie with the edge going to Trump because he so masterfully avoided the questions by being so outrageous that all you can do is watch with your jaw agape thinking about what countries might be spared nuclear fallout. As Gloria Borger said last night: “it’s what we expect from him,” so no harm to foul.

I’m not going to fact check him — others will be up all night doing that. But I do think it’s important to point out that while a number of lefties were out in force saying that it wasn’t fair to label Trump as being for Libya since all he did was make a passing remark on a radio show, he said this at the time:

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Hollywood goes local

by digby

I think this is very cool:

A Democratic Super PAC founded in ’08 by documentary filmmaker Lee Hirsch (Bully) today is launching on TV a series of anti-Trump political ads in battleground states.

The first spot, featuring Republican grandmother Joan Powell of Butler County, Ohio, was created by Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, Norman Lear). Predominantly Republican Butler County, just north of Cincinnati and within close proximity of Kentucky and Indiana, went 61% for GOP hopeful John McCain in ’08, and 62% for President Obama in ’12. In the 2016 Republican primary, John Kasich narrowly edged Donald Trump 41.6% to 39.6%, with a difference of 1395 votes.

On its web site, Local Voices says that, in the last two presidential election cycles, it produced and aired more than 50 campaign ads focusing on the white working class in battleground states. Local voices share their political views in spots that air in the same communities in which they were filmed, making for a “hyper-local marketing strategy,” the Super PAC maintains.

They say people are best persuaded by their own neighbors.

Here’s the ad mentioned above. And beneath is a new one:

Headline o’ the day

by digby

Hard to believe that the GOP nominee for VP is breaking with his running mate by saying he believes the president of the United States is an American but there it is.

“Well I believe Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, I accept his birthplace,” Pence told reporters during a brief gaggle aboard his campaign plane before a fundraising event

Responding to Pence’s insistence that Trump is expanding the GOP base, Politico adds blandly:

Trump has continued to struggle among African American voters, with many analysts pointing to his 2011 effort that sought unsuccessfully to show the president was not born in the United States as a source of the discomfort with Trump. Even after Obama released his long form birth certificate, Trump suggested it could be a forgery and has since called on Obama to release his college transcripts.

He has avoided questions about the controversy this week, telling reporters Monday, “I don’t talk about it, because if I talk about that, your whole thing will be about that.”

Sure, that’s cool. Never mind.

Rep. King, asked by CNN if Trump should apologize to Obama for birther Qs: “I don’t think we should be a nation apologizing all the time”

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) September 7, 2016

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Getting all Willie Horton


by digby

The latest wingnut email scam. This is a postcard that one of the snakeoil salesmen have produced to send to voters in swing states.

Remind you of anything?

Remind you of anything?

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The privileged won’t suffer if he wins

by digby

If we allow this killer’s father to win the White House certain people will probably be fine, (although if he manages to start WWIII as he seems determined to do, even they could be threatened.) But a lot of humans on this planet will not be so lucky. This piece by Kathleen Parker takes a look at the threat Trump poses to the animal world:

When asked about his sons’ bloody hobby, Trump demurred except to say that his sons are excellent marksmen. Trump prefers golf, he said, and he obviously limits trophy collecting to women. Junior, meanwhile, says he’d like to head the Interior Department, which, among other things, oversees trophy-hunting imports. Under Obama, elephant trophies from Tanzania and Zimbabwe were halted and African lions were listed as threatened. What would a trophy-hunting Trump do with such protections?

Meanwhile, the Republican nominee’s anti-animal animus may be gleaned from his choice of agriculture advisers, which the Humane Society Legislative Fund has called a “rogues gallery” of anti-animal welfare activists. (Disclaimer: My son works for the Humane Society.)

Foremost is Forrest Lucas, billionaire founder of Protect the Harvest, an organization focused on fighting the Humane Society and opposing any legislation aimed at restricting cruel animal practices in the production of meat, dairy and eggs.

Such humane propositions are viewed by Lucas’s group as unnecessarily restrictive to business, limiting our freedoms and attacking our all-too-American culture. Among the “traditions” the harvest group has sought to protect are circuses, illustrated on the organization’s website with a photo of elephants absurdly parading in a conga line on their hind legs. Thanks to animal activists and enlightened spectators, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus recently retired its elephants from the ring, to the lasting deprivation of no one.

Lucas and Co. have also opposed efforts to establish felony-level penalties for malicious cruelty against dogs, cats and horses, even fighting standards for dogs in commercial puppy mills.

Also on the committee is Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R), who has the distinction of being the first governor to sign into law an “ag-gag” measure that punishes whistleblowers, giving factory farmers free rein over animal welfare and worker safety. The bill’s sponsor, former Iowa state representative Annette Sweeney, also a Republican, is also a Trump adviser. Another adviser, former Nebraska governor Dave Heineman, vetoed a bill to end the sport hunting of mountain lions and has defended factory farming practices that many happy omnivores find reprehensible, including the use of battery cages and gestation crates.

Adviser and Iowa factory farmer Bruce Rastetter is reported to be a leading candidate to become Trump’s agriculture secretary. His brother is the chief executive of a company that builds large-scale hog facilities as well as gestation crates for breeding sows. Which way Trump leans — animal welfare or business profits — doesn’t seem to be in question.

Let’s just say that his selection of advisers, coupled with a cavalier attitude toward his sons’ big-game hunting, bodes ill for animals and the protections so many Americans find both reasonable and desirable. I guess it’s all in how you define freedom. Personally, I’d like to see how high these merciless profit warriors and trophy hunters can jump — not as a prelude to leadership but rather to the ever-popular flying leap.

Certain animal rights activists (who are against the use of wool or honey) have been protesting Clinton (and Sanders before her) because her platform doesn’t go far enough in their view. But it’s a lot better than Trump’s: 

In the platform, Clinton calls for an end to the use of antibiotics in factory-farmed animals, for tougher laws against wildlife-trafficking, and for tighter regulations on puppy mills. And she promises to bar the practice of slaughtering horses for human consumption, and to encourage farmers “to raise animals humanely.” 

Over the course of her political career, Clinton has made elephant advocacy a top cause, and the Clinton Foundation set aside $80 million for anti-poaching efforts in September 2013. She also prioritized elephant protection at the State Department, arguing that profits from poaching funded terrorist groups.  

I guess this isn’t the highest priority when Trump is calling for nuclear war. But it should matter a little bit to those who care about animals. Trump doesn’t. At all. In any way.

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Trump on national security is why he cannot be president

by digby

He gave a speech today. It’s was as incoherent and chilling as they always are when he talks about national security. I know a lot of people think it doesn’t matter, that Clinton is warmonger and will be just as bad. This is simply not true. Trump is a unique threat, like no other.

The polls are tightening. He could win, don’t kid yourselves. And as comforting as it will be to blame Clinton for failing and say “I told you so” it won’t solve the problem of having this man as leader of the world’s only superpower.

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Trump’s generals

by digby

I wrote about Trump as commander in chief and the military minds who are backing him for Salon this morning:

Donald Trump is fully aware of it and is making it a central part of his argument in these last few weeks of the campaign:

 “Does she look presidential, fellas?Give me a break.”

“I just don’t think she has a presidential look, and you need a presidential look. You have to get the job done. I think if she went to Mexico she would have had a total failure. We had a big success.”

It’s pretty obvious what he means by that. Women don’t look like presidents.

A rather formidable number of foreign policy and national security experts from both parties have endorsed Clinton over Trump including some high ranking members of the military. But Trump has now pulled together a list of more than eighty retired senior military officers who would rather have an inexperienced demagogue for commander in chief than Hillary Clinton.

The list was put together by his number one fan General Michael Flynn whose most memorable moment in the campaign was his rousing speech at the RNC which he capped by leading the bloodthirsty crowd in chants of “lock her up, lock her up!” Although Trump has proudly proclaimed that he knows more about ISIS than the generals do, Flynn is, by all accounts, Trump’s foremost national security adviser which is somewhat concerning since he’s teamed up with one of the most hysterical neoconservative writers in the country, Michael Ledeen, on a book about Islamic terrorism.  (Ledeen’s most memorable essay during the run up to the Iraq war was a speculative piece that France and Germany were literally in cahoots with al Qaeda.)

Even more concerning is this incoherent analysis which he published in an op-ed for the New York Post:

We’re in a global war, facing an enemy alliance that runs from Pyongyang, North Korea, to Havana, Cuba, and Caracas, Venezuela. Along the way, the alliance picks up radical Muslim countries and organizations such as Iran, al Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamic State.
That’s a formidable coalition, and nobody should be shocked to discover that we are losing the war.

He adds Russia to the mix later on which is kind of surprising since he’s one of the leading promoters of Vladimir Putin in the Trump camp. This is all, to put it mildly, nuts. Governments in Caracas, Tehran, Moscow and Pyongyang are not in a “coalition” of any kind. Anyone who thinks they are is not someone who should be taken seriously.

Unsurprisingly, Flynn was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for his radical views and he retired from the military. Generals who want to start World War III are probably not a good fit for a superpower which wishes to remain sane and rational.

Another name on Trump’s list that leaps out is General Jerry Boykin, last heard from claiming that the US is leading a holy war of Christians vs Muslims and being blasted by the Pentagon for writing a book full of classified information. The list of weirdness from this fellow, now an executive with the family Research Council is a mile long. My personal favorite is his contention that “Jesus, who was a real “man’s man,” will return to earth carrying an AR-15.”

A tale of two stories
by Tom Sullivan

The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 is mentioned in the Canterbury Tales.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is already flexing her political muscle to influence hires by a prospective Hillary Clinton transition team, according to Vanity Fair. She has put together a coalition aimed at ensuring Clinton hires progressive thinkers and policymakers:

In Warren’s “hell no” category for appointees are corporate executives with ties to the industries they would be regulating, and individuals with strong ties to Wall Street, Politico reports. That would exclude Clinton friends like Robert Rubin, who held top positions at both Goldman Sachs and Citigroup before serving as treasury secretary for Bill Clinton, or Michael Froman, who worked on Barack Obama’s transition team while still on Citigroup’s payroll. Instead, Warren reportedly hopes to line Clinton’s cabinet with a number of strong left-leaning liberal voices. And the senator’s efforts have already begun to pay off. The Democratic Party has reportedly adopted the Warren’s guideline that only those “who are not beholden to the industries they regulate” should receive appointments, Politico reports, and this week Clinton hired two Warren-approved progressives for her transition team, Heather Boushey and Rohit Chopra.

The source of Warren’s clout gets lost in the process discussions. Warren’s is a powerful voice because she
connects with audiences in a way few Democrats do. She tells stories, stories about families’ struggles, about corruption in high places, about an economic system designed by the powerful for the powerful, and that defends a system of inequity working people don’t just read about, but feel in their bones.

Sure, Warren is a progressive bulldog, but she has the clout she has because of the stories she tells and the way she tells them. She connects.

Contrast that with the stories told on the right, as Jon Favreau does at The Ringer. Donald Trump’s candidacy is not built on policy positions or knowledge of how government works, but on a narrative set by conservative entertainers:

These right-wing media stars don’t sell their audiences conservatism, nationalism, populism, or any “-isms” at all. They are entertainers. They sell conspiracy and innuendo. They sell outrage and grievance. “The ideal CNN story is a baby down a well,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, “while the ideal Fox story is probably a baby thrown down a well by a Muslim terrorist or an ACORN activist.” If you have a problem in your life — if you’re scared or anxious or feel that you’ve been treated unfairly — people like Hannity and Drudge and outlets like Breitbart tell you where to direct your blame. They tell you who deserves your suspicion. And it’s always people who are different than you — either they’re richer, more powerful, and therefore corrupt, or they don’t look like you, pray like you, speak like you, or come from where you do.

Trump has tapped into a narrative with a ready-made audience. Favreau writes, “Trump talks like a true talk radio fan — longtime listener, first-time caller. He comes off like the winner of a reality TV show in which one lucky Fox viewer gets picked to run for president of the United States.”

As the presidential race heads for November, Hillary Clinton may be advised to expose Trump as “a lying, uninformed fraud” through relentless logic and reasoning. Yet:

… we should also remember that Trump is a media celebrity who’s been coached to tell a certain story about America, and the best way to counter that is with a story of our own. It’s the story that was told at the Democratic convention by Hillary Clinton, who laid out a bold, optimistic vision for a future where we rise together. It’s the story that was told by Barack and Michelle Obama, who spoke of a country that’s hopeful and generous; tolerant and kind — a place where we teach our children to treat one another with common decency and respect. It’s the story told by Khizr and Ghazala Khan, a family of Muslim immigrants who struggled and sacrificed to make a home in America, and raised a courageous son who gave his life for the country he loved. It’s a story that sometimes makes us roll our eyes because we’re hardened and cynical and we let ourselves believe that fear and anger are the only emotions that leaders can use to inspire anymore. But it’s a story that must be told, over and over again.

Twice in two days, the press-shy Clinton answered questions for reporters on her campaign plane, breaking with her habit of keeping the press corps at arms length. She is showing a willingness to adapt to a changing campaign landscape. Perhaps she can bring some Warren kick to the final sprint. Trump’s narrative succeeds because his audience already knows it. He’s connecting with them, as Warren does, by telling their own story back to them. Clinton needs to make that connection, as she reportedly does well one-on-one.

“She needs to tell stories,” my wife said of Clinton just the other day. (And not just formulaically name-check voters she’s met on the campaign trail.) It’s good advice.