Readers: Climate Change Is Absolutely Affecting Weather In The United States
The latest way climate deniers are dismissing reality is they acknowledge climate change but deny that it’s caused by man. The latest example is Arizona Gov Jan Brewer:
“Everybody has an opinion on it, you know, and I probably don’t believe that it’s man-made,” she told Welch, who had posed the question in the context of her upcoming speech at an energy summit. “I believe that, you know, that weather and certain elements are controlled maybe by different things.” (Huffington Post)
Different things? Such as? But it couldn’t possibly be man and all our burning of fossil fuels! Other things…non-man things.
Thankfully most of the readers don’t try to split hairs on the cause of climate change, here are the results of the poll from last week:
Q: Do You Think Climate Change (Global Warming) Is Affecting The Weather In The United States?
- Absolutely 89 [66.92%]
- Possibly 19 [14.29%]
- Not at all 16 [12.03%]
- Unsure/No Answer 5 [3.76%]
- Other: 4 [3.01%]
Here are the four other answers:
- You would have to be a blind dumbass to think otherwise
- Climate change is mostly a result of natural causes; humans may accelerate…
- Yes, it is real but probably not manmade
- Duh!!!!
Political ideology is preventing many from accepting that humans have altered our climate. Happy 12-12-12!
— Steve Patterson
“Middle class could wreck the whole planet”: http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22176681/lewis-middle-class-could-wreck-whole-planet
Yeah if the wealthy don’t manage to ruin everything first. The major media are mouthpieces for the corporate world, even supposedly liberal media like the Post-Dispatch and NY Times spend a good deal of time apologizing for the corporate world and their actions (how in the hell can no one have been sent to prison over the financial crisis?).
No doubt the middle class will increase throughout the world, but it is corporate policies and their imagined profits that still rule. Here is a reference: try google maps, type in Restaurant Chez Eugene Paris or the square, Place du Tertre Paris, France. Take to the street view, you can go down all of the surrounding streets, there is not a parking lot in sight,the plan view confirms this observation. It is the way to build cities. It is what a balanced auto, transit orientated, pedestrian environment could look like (You never see that conversation in the media).
The screaming by the Denver Post and the rest of the so called liberal media is distracting the conversation away from talking about the building of effective cities.
A discussion about seriously limiting auto usage in the City of St. Louis is never to be seen. Ideas are off limits in the media, they only discuss the mandates of their corporate owners and their friends. (The whole social security thing is a hilarious example of total media capitulation to the corporate meme: actually it would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad).
Actually the underlying message of the Denver Post is “let’s keep them poor, so we can have everything.”
http://www.parkingsdeparis.com/EN/
There are places in St. Louis where you can go “to the street view, you can go down all of the surrounding streets,
there is not a parking lot in sight,the plan view confirms this
observation.” You can also go to many. many other streets, both here and there, outside of the historic, dense, walkable downtown districts, where commercial districts do offer parking – just Google “Paris France shopping malls” or “Paris France supermarkets”. Yes, what you want is one ideal, but the market will always respond to what us consumers have to spend in our grubby little hands . . . .
You don’t seem to understand that there are cities that actually prevent surface parking lots from appearing anywhere, that there are cities that design for walkability. Screw the market, it is so distorted by the pirates at top (Buckminster Fuller called them pirates) that it is impossible to know how a true free market can function.
What I was pointing out about Paris, as I say above, is it is an example of what a balanced car, transit and walkable environment looks like. It is an approach that necessity will bring us back to embracing. In other words the overall economic and environmental degradation of the global environment by the so called “free markets” will force rethinking of how we build cities, in fact this process is already going on right now.
You never offer solutions, you just throw out something about the “markets” and blow off everything else including the fact human beings have a mind and are capable of thinking. The human race has actually developed the ability to solve problems. Leaving everything to the imaginary free market you espouse is not only ridiculous, it is deadly.
You and I have similar goals – denser, walkable urban areas – but we see two very different paths for getting there. You seem to favor big, dogmatic government (the “stick” approach), while I favor smaller government, focused more on the “carrot” approach. Yes, every government needs to be able to say “no”, but to place complete trust in the government, any government, and its employees to always do the right thing is just as ludicrous to expect the private sector to always do the right thing. Add in the reality that there is relatively little development and redevelopment happening in the city, and we’re stuck with micro-managing the status quo instead of implementing any real, significant paradigm shifts . . . .
You are putting words in my mouth, I do not favor big, dogmatic government. However the City of St. Louis has been trying it your way for well over 60 years now. In fact Paul McKee on the North Side regeneration project is more of the same, no guidance from the government to insure that any development undertaken is in the best interests of the citizens and the city. Instead it is the same free for all policies that have caused St. Louis to rot at its core. The evidence of those failed policies surround us, do you need more evidence?
In any case there are many areas of city planning that developers normally don’t touch including transit and the formation of public space that are normally government functions.
The fact is capitalism and free markets are largely a failure when it comes to addressing problems. Especially the egregious monopoly capitalism so prevalent today, that not coincidentally buys government policy every time you turn around. (Such as Paul McKee and his multi million dollar tax credit passed by the state that benefits no one else but him and his project on the Northside)
I can give examples of free market failures: health care, oil alternatives, city planning and the like, but you already have your mind made up it seems.I’m not sure who you expect to produce this walkable city, benevolent developers? Or is it just more magical thinking?
You also complain about the lack of investment, I attribute that in large part to the laissez faire policies that fail to give developers confidence that the city government is building a viable city. As a citizen i know I don’t have that confidence. Do you?
I just hope Steve pins Slay and Reed to the wall and make them answer in public about their urban policies and how they can excuse not taking a leadership role on behalf of the citizens in McKee’s Northside proposals for example. Both are at fault at this junction for the comic relief that is Paul McKee.
That being said it is not funny that we as citizens waste the opportunity to build a city that is not only more humane and a higher quality living environment, but also one that combats global warming. As serious as these issues are, the political class in the City is not on the radar about this at all. Meanwhile Paul McKee is apparently free to pretty well do as he pleases, which I gather suits you fine.
Designing to combat global warming is hardly micro managing, in fact it is the significant paradigm shift that is needed, but not discussed except here on Urban Review. Our fabulous free market system ignores the issue as if it does not exist. Or, at best, it is compartmentalized into a discussion that somehow never includes the daily lives of the citizens.
Much like you are putting words in my mouth . . . . You state that “the City of St. Louis has been trying it [my] way for well over 60 years now.” I’ll counter that most of what has (not) happened in the city over the last 60 years is that more than half of the people and the jobs have moved, both figuratively and literally, to greener pastures in our surrounding counties. No one held a gun to their heads (or maybe they did). The population of the metro area has grown while the population of the city has shrunk. Many, many people CHOSE (and continue to choose) to leave a city that once was highly walkable with a robust public transit system. Our walkability, while damaged, remains largely intact. Buses have replaced streetcars, but we still have a fairly comprehensive transit system IN THE CITY. What’s missing (and what attracts people to other areas) is a sense of security and a sense of optimism.
We can plan all we want, but without the resources and the will to make things happen, we’re just wasting our time, chasing rainbows. Why did GM move from north city to Wentzville? Why are major employers, like Monsanto and Express Scripts, in the county, and not in the city? In the Post-Dispatch today, there’s an article about Hillshire Farms moving from suburban Chicago to the Loop – why aren’t we seeing the same movement here?! Much of north city is struggling, even though it has better transit than much of the rest of the region. Raw land is cheap and plentiful on the north side (that’s precisely why McKee sees possibilities). The city hasn’t had much success doing it their way, so why not let McKee try it his way? Telling people that they can’t have parking lots isn’t the solution. Giving them better options than driving IS! Much like gun control, we have too many people who want to be able to own their own cars and trucks, and as long as it remains remotely AFFORDABLE, it’s going to be the choice many, many people choose! And yes, that choice will continue to have big impacts on our built environment, here and in Paris and in Stockholm . . . .
http://www.stltoday.com/business/national-and-international/hillshire-brands-starting-up-in-new-space/article_7f0d80a2-a649-5e05-a981-539952c744f2.html
I prefer to think of it as profit could wreck the whole planet. Consumption is one thing, but billions spent on MarketingPRopaganda by corporate supranationals and wealthy interests to confuse, lie, misinterpret, exaggerate, weasel, and otherwise commit outrageous acts of linguistic and visual mendacity is the primary driver of inaction on the planet. Demand for products can only go so far in being blamed for the present state of affairs. People can do without. WWII proved that: rationing of fuel, meat, certain texiles, metal recycling drives, war bonds, increased taxes on everyone (especially the wealthy; how the hell does anyone think we paid for the war, a bake sale?; that 94% effective tax rate during the Eisenhower admin. wasn’t some punitive effort to “soak the rich”, it was there to pay for the war from which they profited handsomely. It also had the secondary effect of forcing the wealthy to invest prudently, and not use the markets as a casino).
Of course, if this country hadn’t doubled down on the stoopid in 1953 (the year we stopped producing 100% of our own oil), and overthrown the legitimately elected government of Mohamed Mossadeqh in Iran, and instead came up with a plan to wean ourselves of oil, we wouldn’t be where we are today. The build-up of carbon in the atmosphere was not some crazy new notion. It had been postulated as early as 1860 or so by a German(?) scientist, and a video (film) is out there from the fifties which repeats the same assumptions. The billionsUSD of profits at stake guaranteed that we would maintain the status quo at all costs. Literally.
The problem now is that several tipping points have–or will be–triggered already. Melting of tundra in the Arctic Circle and methane hydrates (clathrates) on the floor of the planet’s oceans are two of the most disturbing and worrisome events so far (put Svalbard ignition in your favorite search engine; just don’t have a gun or a lethal dose of barbiturates handy when you do). Ocean acidification will also be a killer. As well, there is a scientist out there, probably one of many, who basically says we’re toast, even if we go on a crash, Apollo-like effort to eliminate carbon production by–pick a date in this century: 2030, 2050…whatev–it won’t matter. The carbon released in such an effort–combined with the carbon already polluting the atmosphere–would put the nail in the coffin. Look up a guy named George Mobus, and his blog Question Everything. Have fun. He’s been doing a lot of economics-related writing lately, but his main focus is on the science dealing with systems, and how they are affected by various inputs. Say, carbon into the atmosphere. Cheers.
If you want to debate the merits of moving from an agrarian society to an industrial / consumer society, we can. The reality is that few of us are true producers, living directly off of the land and its finite resources. We, instead, process information, work in retail (buy low, sell high), provide services for pay, move people, move stuff, market stuff, “play the market” or we get paid to preach. We reproduce like rabbits and continue to populate arid parts of this country, draining the aquifers. Our “vision”, for most of us, may be a decade, at best – few of us are thinking past the middle of this century (35-40 years out – I know that I’m not). I do agree that our current path is unsustainable and I agree that there is little that can or will be done before true crises start to spread, starting in the “third world” and moving to the “first”. We’ll either “survive”, as a species, with a much smaller population, or we’ll go the way of the dinosaurs and every other extinct species – nature can be cruel that way . . . .
Middle class is the legacy the US leaves behind. As the Billions in China and India move from agraian to consumerism, it’s only going to get worse. And right or wrong, who are we to deny them the ability to improve their individual lives? The difference is that here in America, we’ve done it (kicking and screaming) without destroying the environment, thanks to the EPA and other goverment agencies. Overseas, it’s a free for all with the environment getting the shaft. Just wait till Africa and the rest of Asia joins the race.
I don’t think we can say humans are causing the climate change anymore than we caused the Ice Age or subsequent glacial melting that shaped the continents as we know them. Of course, we’re not helping anything and contributing much more negatively than prehistoric man did, but I don’t know how scientists can determine the extent of our destruction.
You’re misreading the poll results. The question asks if climate change is affecting the US. Yes. It is. The poll doesn’t address the causes; that remains the only point of debate in an overly politicized subject.
Well then feel free to ignore reams of scientific studies proving that MAN is the CAUSE of global change. And God -forbid should we actually try and conserve our various resources and protect the environment. Seriously…what’s the worse that can happen? That we leave the environment a little less damaged and better for the next generation….that is not a bad thing.