Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

It’s getting hot

I know that the weather hasn’t been particularly summer-like so far, but only someone with his head in the sand or with a political ax to grind would take it as evidence that climate change is a myth. (I actually saw Dennis Miller make this case on one of the late-night shows a couple of years ago, that a couple of degrees increase in average planetary temperature would hardly be felt. What a sad coda to what was such a promising career.)

Most of the critics take a different tack — either talking about the science as just projections (see the comment from the American Farm Bureau at the end of this story on a new climate change report).

But the Earth is warming, and it may be happening more quickly and with more damaging consequences than we’ve thought, according to United States Global Change Research Program.

Here are the report’s key findings:

1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. (p. 13)

2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.
Climate-related changes are already observed in the United States and its coastal waters. These include increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. These changes are projected to grow. (p. 27)

3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health. These impacts are different from region to region and will grow under projected climate change. (p. 41-106, 107-152)

4. Climate change will stress water resources.
Water is an issue in every region, but the nature of the potential impacts varies. Drought, related to reduced precipitation, increased evaporation, and increased water loss from plants, is an important issue in many regions, especially in the West. Floods and water quality problems are likely to be amplified by climate change in most regions. Declines in mountain snowpack are important in the West and Alaska where snowpack provides vital natural water storage. (p. 41, 129, 135, 139)

5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
Agriculture is considered one of the sectors most adaptable to changes in climate. However, increased heat, pests, water stress, diseases, and weather extremes will pose adaptation challenges for crop and livestock production. (p. 71)

6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.
Sea-level rise and storm surge place many U.S. coastal areas at increasing risk of erosion and flooding, especially along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Pacific Islands, and parts of Alaska. Energy and transportation infrastructure and other property in coastal areas are very likely to be adversely affected. (p. 111, 139, 145, 149)

7. Threats to human health will increase.
Health impacts of climate change are related to heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents. Robust public health infrastructure can reduce the potential for negative impacts. (p. 89)

8. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.
Climate change will combine with pollution, population growth, overuse of resources, urbanization, and other social, economic, and environmental stresses to create larger impacts than from any of these factors alone. (p. 99)

9. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.
There are a variety of thresholds in the climate system and ecosystems. These thresholds determine, for example, the presence of sea ice and permafrost, and the survival of species, from fish to insect pests, with implications for society. With further climate change, the crossing of additional thresholds is expected. (p. 76, 82, 115, 137, 142)

10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.
The amount and rate of future climate change depend primarily on current and future human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases and airborne particles. Responses involve reducing emissions to limit future warming, and adapting to the changes that are unavoidable. (p. 25, 29)

The disbelievers have already written their response to this report; it is the same one they’ve been offering for years. But they are such a small minority — the science is against them.

Maybe the report can be the impetus needed to get Congress to act.

Steroids, Sammy Sosa and Casablanca

What was it that Capt. Renault said in Casablanca as he closed Rick’s? “I’m shocked,” he says, “shocked to find that gambling is going on in here,” as the croupier hands him a pile of cash.

I think the news that broke today on Sammy Sosa — that he was “among the players who tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003,” according to The New York Times — is one of those Capt. Renault moments.

Shocking news? Not when the list of players linked to steroids includes some of the era’s top sluggers — and when Sosa transformed himself from a skinny speedster to a massive power hitter in just a few years.

Inflating the fear index

Matthew Yglesias, in this post, says what I’ve been thinking for a while:

I continue to be baffled that with all the problems facing the economy and all the genuinely debatable policy issues in play, some people continue to be spending most of their time warning us of the dangers of inflation. Consider:

So-called core producer prices, which exclude food and energy costs, fell 0.1 percent, indicating broad pressure on prices because of lower demand across the economy.

I think the inflation rate should at least be above zero before we start worrying that it’s gotten out of control. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Runner’s diary, Monday

My legs are still sore from Friday’s heavy workout — plus I hauled 40-pound bags of top soil and some heavy, 16-inch-square pavers in my back yard yesterday — so pushing through my three-mile run on the treadmill (I was expecting it to rain) was tough. I did it, then stretched, but it wasn’t all that fun.

iPod: Bill Moyers’ Journal — interview with Robert Reich and on Thomas Paine.

A line in the sand?

Has President Barack Obama finally drawn the line in the sand on health care?

In a speech today to the American Medical Association, the president — in the words of The Washington Post “offered a forceful defense of creating a controversial new government-sponsored health insurance program as part of a broad overhaul of the nation’s system.”

“Insurance companies have expressed support for the idea of covering the uninsured — and I welcome their willingness to engage constructively in the reform debate, I’m glad they’re at the table,” he told nearly 2,000 AMA members. “But what I refuse to do is simply create a system where insurance companies suddenly have a whole bunch more customers on Uncle Sam’s dime, but still fail to meet their responsibilities.”

He described the outlines of the public plan this way (from text of speech as prepared, on Daily Kos):

If you don’t like your health coverage or don’t have any insurance, you will have a chance to take part in what we’re calling a Health Insurance Exchange. This Exchange will allow you to one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose a plan that’s best for you and your family – just as federal employees can do, from a postal worker to a Member of Congress. You will have your choice of a number of plans that offer a few different packages, but every plan would offer an affordable, basic package. And one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market so that force waste out of the system and keep the insurance companies honest.

This is the strongest language he has used since the election in support of the public option. The question is whether it addresses the question raised by Robert Reich on Friday on Bill Moyers’ Journal.

BILL MOYERS: (Y)ou said on your blog this week that the real question for you is the extent to which Barack Obama will push back against these lobbies. What’s your answer to your own question?

ROBERT REICH: I don’t know, Bill. This is the first test where there is huge organized opposition. And it’s coming from very, very powerful lobbies who have prevailed– not just for ten or 15 years. You’ve prevailed for decades on this issue. So this is the truth time in terms of how able and willing the President and the White House is to really set boundaries and push members of Congress.

So it’s at this point– and I’m talking about the next two or three or four weeks. I mean, we’re talking about crunch time right now– that the President has got to step in and be forceful and be specific. And I don’t know whether he will be. I hope he is.

BILL MOYERS: What will you be looking for?

ROBERT REICH: I’ll be looking for whether he can say to Max Baucus, for example, of Senate finance, “Look, this is what I want. And if you’re not going to go along with this, I want to know why. And if you’re not going to go along with this, then would something else you want down the line you’re not going to get.” In other words, he’s got to really create very, very specific conditions, threats, promises. This is the stuff of politics.

Reich is correct. While he spoke several days before today’s speech, the basic point remains valid: He needs to spend his political capital to create a public option (especially with the public being in his corner on the issue), backing Ted Kennedy and the public-option advocates publicly and loudly and making it clear through the standard political channels that there would be consequences to those Democratic senators who jump ship.

Before anyone accuses me of calling for Obama to do something I critized Bush for doing, stop. I am not advocating the president usurp the power of the legislative branch via some kooky theory of the unitary executive. Rather, I am calling for Obama to play hardball politics, to put his popularity on the line for one of his signature policy goals.

Today’s speech is a good sign, but we won’t know for several weeks if it predicts a new tack for Obama, whose instincts are more toward compromise than confrontation.

So we’ll see. Let’s hope he’s begun drawing his line in the sand on health care.