Hank Kalet

One of the biggest canards that the right likes to toss around is the notion that addressing global warming will be an economic disaster. Cutting greenhouse gases, the argument goes, would cause the national economy to slow down or stop because of the high cost of making changes.

But the argument always has had two flaws. One is the underlying assumption — that the costs of pollution and warming are to be born by society and that the manufacturers (or consumers buying Hummers) bear no responsibility for dirty air and water or higher global temperatures.

The other is the basic assumption that the costs of making changes would not be offset by other savings or by creating new jobs and new industries.

Finally, a new report is out that debunks this argument.

According to the BBC (by way of TruthDig.com), economist Sir Nicholas Stern has calculated that global climate change could cut global growth by a fifth while addressing the problem would cost only 1 percent of global gross domestic product.

Sir Nicholas’s report warns unless the world moves to cut green house gases it is heading for a “catastrophic climate change” which would create the worst global recession ever seen.

The Stern Review forecasts that 1% of global gross domestic product (GDP) must be spent on tackling climate change immediately.

It warns that if no action is taken:

Floods from rising sea levels could displace up to 100 million people

Melting glaciers could cause water shortages for 1 in 6 of the world’s population

Wildlife will be harmed; at worst up to 40% of species could become extinct

Droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of ‘climate refugees’

The study is the first major contribution to the global warming debate by an economist, rather than a scientist.

Do you think those who live outside the reality-based community might listen to this?

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

I ran the Run with the Vikings 5K this morning, posting a 27:41 — slower than I’d, but still better than my goal given my recent training inconsistencies.

The race course is pretty decent, along local streets in the Fresh Impressions development, but the wind was brutal. I pushed too hard to start, burning myself out with an eight-minute opening mile and progressively slower splits the rest of the way. The last half mile was like pushing a blocking sled, wind in the face making it impossible to find anything left for a big kick.

I guess more training is in order.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Sad news for basketball fans. Red Auerbach died today at age 89.

Born Arnold Auerbach in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Sept. 20, 1917, Auerbach was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969.

“I never thought he’d die,” said author John Feinstein, who last year collaborated on a book with Auerbach on the coach’s reflections of more than 70 years in basketball. “He was a unique personality, a combination of toughness and great, great caring about people. He cared about people much more than it showed in his public face, and that’s why people cared about him.”

With the Celtics, he made deals that brought Bill Russell, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale to Boston. He drafted Larry Bird a year early when the Indiana State star was a junior to make sure Bird would come to Boston. The jersey No. 2 was retired in Auerbach’s honor during the 1984-85 season.

He coached championship teams, including eight straight from 1959 through 1966, that featured players such as Russell, Bob Cousy, Tom Heinsohn, Bill Sharman, K.C. Jones and Sam Jones, all inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Auerbach coached and then ran the despised — by Knicks fans like me — but he stands as one of the men who helped put the sport on the map.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Bill O’Reilly, the nation’s pre-eminent bloviator, made the talk rounds Friday, venturing out his “no-spin” bubble into hostile territory.

Making stops on “Oprah” and “Late Night with David Letterman” to hawk his latest book, O’Reilly spewed his standard invective, blasting the vast left-wing conspiracy for ruining the nation with its amoral behavior and complete control of the power apparatus.

It is the standard argument that the right has been making for years, that the liberals — what he calls “secular-progressives” — are using their power and influence to destroy American values. It is an argument that builds off the obviously false notion that so-called SPs actually run things.

His rant on “Oprah” targeted people ike George Soros and organizations like MoveOn.org (those left-wing Web sites, as he said), the entertainment industry and, of all things, a left-wing media that disdains traditional values (does he actually ever read the paper or watch the news?
To which news organization are we to assume he refers?).

His arguments on Oprah made his Letterman appearance all the more significant, because Letterman of all people called the Grand Bloviator on his tenuous grasp on the facts (“I have no idea what I’m talking about,” Dave said, “but I don’t think you do either.”)

In the end, the O’Reilly argument — advanced by others on the right like Sean Hannity and even the vice president — is designed to do little more than promote the myth of a hidden power elite when the real power is pretty obviously in the hands of right-wing hatchet men like Bill O’Reilly (the right controls all three branches of government and corporate interests tend to be value-neutral, supporting those politicians who will do the most to help pad the bottom line).

There is an echo here of the argument used by the Nazis in German (no, I am not equating the American right with the Nazis; I’m only pointing out the rhetorical similarities) — that a hidden elite (then it was Jewish bankers; today, it is secular-progressives and the media elite) has taken over and is eroding what has made the nation great.

It is, to be kind, a bunch of hooey. But their argument also poses some danger because fascism has its seeds in a culture of blame. What makes it all the more disgusting, though, is that O’Reilly and his minions know the argument is the proverbial red herring, something to get the plot rolling and to distract us from the real stakes. They have dressed their naked thirst for power in patriotic and traditionalist garb.

As Keith Olbermann might say, “have you no shame, sir?”

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

I was no fan of Christie Whitman when she was governor, but she did manage to get this one right. Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, the first woman chief justice in the state’s history, left a legacy of expanding rights — especially for minorities and women — ending it with her blistering dissent in the same-sex marriage case decided Wednesday (she didn’t disagree with the court’s ruling that gay couples deserved equal rights; she disagreed with the court’s unwillingness to use the word “marriage”).

I had the opportunity, shortly after she was appointed by Gov. Whitman, as the state’s first female attorney general to sit with her for a story. I was a reporter in Princeton for the Packet at the time and she was gracious and gave willingly of her time.

She deserves the best in retirement.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick