Republican Anti-Science Committee

Good Grief! Do you still wonder why Republicans have no credibility with voters? The House Republican Steering Committee just named Wyoming representative Cynthia Lummis as the new chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Yes, THAT Cynthia Lummis. The one who said, “she believes the jury is still out on climate change.” “This subcommittee’s focus on the science of energy development and use is a perfect fit,” she said in a statement.” Where, exactly, in “Science, Space and Technology” does energy development and use fit in?

Lummis takes over the helm from former chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). “In 2009, [Smith] criticized the media for not airing enough “dissenting opinions” about climate change.” Smith, in turn, replaced Texas Republican Ralph Hall.

“I don’t think we can control what God controls.” [Hall] also said he agrees with Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) that climate scientists are involved in a conspiracy to receive research funding.

This is the very same “Science” committee who gave us Paul Broun (R-Georgia) who used the term “Lies from the pit of Hell” to describe his scientific knowledge about the science behind evolution. “And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.” he said at an appearance at Liberty University. “Bill Nye [The Science Guy] slammed Broun, for his comments about evolution, saying that Broun “is, by any measure, unqualified to make decisions about science, space, and technology.”  And, Nye went on to make the astonishing claim, in response to Broun, that the earth is simply not 9,000 years old.

And, let’s not forget committee member Todd “Legitimate rape” Akin. Oh, and, good ole boy Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.),

Rohrabacher has made a number of scientifically questionable statements, including the idea that an earlier period of global warming may have been caused by “dinosaur flatulence.” Last year, after coming under fire for seeming to suggest that if global warming is real it could be addressed by cutting down trees (when in fact forests reduce global warming by absorbing atmospheric carbon), he issued a statement saying, “I do not believe that CO2 is a cause of global warming.”

And so, the anti-”science” committee marches on under the same old, new leadership, embarrassing our country with a chairman and members who wouldn’t know science even if they weren’t sniffing dinosaur farts.

 

The Real Impact of Montana Coal

It’s mid-December here in Button Valley. We barely have a skiff of snow on the ground and temperatures are in the thirties. Did I mention it’s mid-December? While we are doing okay on precipitation, mainly due to a quite wet spring, we have received only about a third of our normal snowfall. There’s a reason for this, and a reason for why it seems to have become the new normal. That reason is related to changes to the Montana climate due to our unfortunate national addiction to fossil fuels.

This morning there was a news report about a U.M. study, funded by the Chamber of Commerce, on the economic impact of coal mining in the state. The study relates that “expanding the state’s coal mines would significantly impact Montana’s economy.”

Patrick Barkey, director of the UM Bureau of Business and Economic Research, said expanding Montana’s existing coal mines and developing new mines would boost jobs, household income and tax revenues across the state.

Now, I realize that these studies are funded by profit from coal mining in the state and the authors are somewhat anxious to produce a product that fits with what their backers want to hear, but it seems to me that they also claim to be economists and academicians and I am always a bit mystified when they fail to investigate the true cost of mining, transporting and burning carbon in their analyses.

It was only earlier this week when thousands of protesters, including many from Montana, traveled to western Washington to protest the building of five new coal terminals on our coast to ship western coal to Asia. These protests were ostensibly about the economic, health and social costs of transporting millions of tons of coal across the country, but of course protesters also were there to remind everyone that there are costs to sending our resources overseas that can’t be counted in jobs, income and tax revenue. There are currently 16 to 23 trains passing through the city of Billings every day. The new coal terminals would increase that number considerably, possibly by eight to ten more trains. The coal trains will add “snarled traffic, emergency response delays, toxic diesel and coal dust emissions, the risks of coal train derailment and toxic spills” all along their route to the coast.

Once the coal arrives at it’s final destination, most likely China, it will be burned in out-of-date, highly-polluting power plants in order to produce cheap products that will be shipped back to the U.S. To get those cheap doodads Montanans will suffer increased incidence of asthma in children and adults, and increase in emphysema and bronchitis, stunted lung development is children, an increase in poisonous mercury in the air we breath, more lung cancer, more heart attacks, more emergency room visits, more strokes as well as an increase in mental retardation and stunted development in our children.

Need we get into the environmental effects? We are already familiar with those here in Button Valley. We now get more of our precipitation as rain, less snow in the winter and lower summer and fall streamflows which means that we see earlier and faster runoff and trouble filling our reservoirs. Our spring freshet now comes, on average, two weeks earlier, our forests are dying due to both insect infestation that is no longer controlled by cold winters and more and larger wildfires. The country at large is seeing more and  larger storms. We see increases in hunger, malnutrition, starvation and famine around the world due to droughts, storms and flooding.

So, like I say, I’m a bit baffled when trained economists see only benefits to strip-mining our coal and fail to even mention the real costs to the people of Montana. Our Coal-Cowboy Governor has said that if we don’t strip and sell Montana coal, China will get it elsewhere.

China will find coal even if the United States won’t deliver it, said Herb Krohn from the United Transportation Union. “All we would do is force (China) to buy dirtier, more-polluting coal,”

These arguments, to me, seem akin to stating that the State of Montana should be selling meth, because if we don’t do it, addicts will just buy it elsewhere. Yes, there are short-term benefits to mining Montana coal, but when you include the longer-term and hidden cost of the toxic assault on our population just burning our rocks for profit doesn’t look nearly so smart. Think about it folks, while we may reap a small profit, our children will pay the ultimate price.

More Corporate Welfare

The question this morning over at KULR in Billings is; “Many Montanans are wondering if our own state could pass right to work legislation now that Michigan lawmakers have decided to do so.” I would say that with recent developments in Michigan, you can almost count on the subject coming up in the 2013 Montana legislature.

Montana is one of 26 states with no right to work laws, which many are calling “the right to work for less” and which my favorite cognitive linguist George Lakoff refers to as Corporate Servitude Laws. As you can see from the graph, there is a direct linkage between middle class wages and percentage of union membership. Michigan has been one of the most heavily unionized states with 17.5% of its workers belonging to unions in a country where, overall only about 7% of workers are organized and that percentage has been dropping for decades..

Proponents of these Corporate Servitude laws argue that weakening unions will bring more jobs to their state. Well DUH! Of course companies want to move to states where they can to pay lower wages and fewer benefits. As Jeff Greenfield, president of the Billings Education Association reminds us, “Through history, we have a five day workweek. That was because of the unions and union contracts. Holidays, child labor laws, benefit packages; those things are good for every employee,” Add to those benefits, pensions, equal pay, overtime pay and better working conditions. Those are all things that we would likely not have if not for the power of labor unions. Good for employees may not necessarily be good for corporations. And, you might notice that these laws are always pushed by Republican lawmakers and their corporate overlords because they see less union membership as a way to weaken support for Democrats.

“The deeper truth about unions is that they don’t just create and maintain rights for workers; they work for and create crucial rights in society as a whole. Unions created weekends, the eight-hour workday and health benefits. And through their politics, they have been at the center of support for civil rights and other social justice issues. In short, unions don’t just work for their members. They work for all of us. Including businesses: Workers are profit creators.”

Of course the phrase “right to work” was chosen because it sounds all touchy-feely like it is giving choice to wage earners when exactly the reverse is true. Remember that once you buy in to the conservative framing of the argument, you are also buying the conservative definition. Calling these ill-advised laws by their name and not something like Corporate Servitude Laws gives the idea more legitimacy not only in the minds of others, but in your own mind as well. The more we use the conservative terminology, the more we strengthen the conservative ideology and the more actual “rights” we stand to lose. Words matter.

When you see this bill come up from the conservative hit squad on the far right side of the aisle in Helena next month, remember this legislation does not confer “rights”, it takes them away from Montana workers and will only make our economy ever weaker.

You Decide

The following news/opinion stories all showed up in my RSS reader this morning. Taken together I think they recognize a conundrum being played out in energy-producing states around the country. The first is an opinion piece by a policy analyst for a conservative think tank in Ohio, but similar opinions are showing up in newsprint and electronic media in most western and mid-western states.

Without coal, we lose
“When energy companies doing business in Ohio make profits, nearly everyone wins, and Ohio’s economy grows, which results in job creation and additional tax dollars for all levels of government.”

With Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Record High, Worries on How to Slow Warming
“Emissions continue to grow so rapidly that an international goal of limiting the ultimate warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, established three years ago, is on the verge of becoming unattainable, said researchers affiliated with the Global Carbon Project.”

Long-Term Research Reveals How Climate Change Is Playing out in Real Ecosystems
“Around the world, the effects of global climate change are increasingly evident and difficult to ignore.”

Off The Cliff And Into Deep Water? Cutting Clean Air And Clean Water Programs Could Incur Heavy Costs
“The health cost of power plant pollution is an estimated $100 billion each year, nationwide, when people get sick or die from breathing dirty air. When polluted water makes swimmers sick, the additional public health costs in just two southern California counties has been estimated at $21 to $51 million each year.”

Wyoming – A look into the effects of energy development on fish
“Most anglers are pretty even-keeled and realize the need for alternative energy development. I think most would agree, however, that if that development comes at the cost of our fisheries it’s not worth it. There are ways to mitigate the impact of energy development on our rivers; and studies like Carlin’s are helping to show how best to preserve fisheries while allowing energy development.”

This is but one day in an on-going argument that is playing out across the country. What does this mean for the Treasure State? Yes, Montana will continue to develop our natural resources. Our economy was built on the resource extraction, but we all need to remember that these resources are finite need to be developed for the benefit of all of the people in Montana and all of the people in our country. The need for alternative, less polluting, energy development must be given equal weight alongside the development of existing natural resources. Mining coal, or drilling for natural gas has consequences that can far outweigh their short-term effects on local economies. As we move forward, we need to keep in mind that we have no choice but to wean ourselves from technologies that kill our people and our environment. We will continue to mine our coal resources and remove our oil and gas from the earth for the near future, but as we do that we need to take into account all of the consequences, not just the monetary rewards or the short-term profit motive.

Please help with this important work

The good folks over at Conservation Hawks are up against a deadline. They need to raise $2,000 this week to match a grant from the Cinnabar Foundation to produce a couple of climate change videos for anglers and hunters. Check out their plea below and please help out if you are able.

Friends,

We need your help.  As Conservation Hawks supporters, you understand how important it is to educate other sportsmen about climate change, and how vital it is to create a groundswell of public support for strong climate & energy legislation.  It’s the only way we’re going to save our hunting and fishing for future generations, and it’s the best chance we have for passing on a healthy natural world to our kids & grandkids.
Unfortunately, we’re up against the wall.  We have to raise enough money to produce two educational climate videos, one for hunters and one for anglers, and we have to raise those funds this week.  Please visit the Conservation Hawks website and donate as much as you can afford to give, whether that’s $5, $25 or $250.  We’re all in this together and with your help, we can offer future generations of sportsmen a fighting chance.  Our world may be warming, but hard work and dedication can help change our political climate, slow our fossil fuel emissions and defend our sporting heritage.

Please visit the Conservation Hawks website and make your tax-deductible donation.
Todd Tanner
Chairman, Conservation Hawks

Uhh…Umm…Gee…Well…

UPDATE 12/05/2012: Evidently Marco Rubio has decided that if he is to become a Party leader, it might be a poor career move to be seen as a doctrinaire teabirther. He is quickly backpedaling on his comments from last month that we can’t know the age of the earth with any certainty. In an interview with Politco, Rubio reluctantly admitted that there really is such a thing as science and just maybe we should pay at least some attention to proven facts. He did say however, “…it’s possible to believe in both creationism and scientific proof that the Earth is much older.” Evidently, somebody forgot to tell Marco that the creation/evolution debate has no relation to the age of the earth since evolution makes no claim whatsoever about the beginning of the universe. Or, maybe he just doesn’t want to stray all that far from the teabirther hard line and risk losing all the crazy-people vote.

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Recently, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, possible 2016 GOP presidential hopeful,  was asked in an interview, “How old do you think the earth is?”  His answer, in part?

“Whether the earth was created in seven days, or seven actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.”

The great mystery is where they come up with these answers. We have known for decades that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. That estimate is based on very real, very sound radioactive decay principles, geology and completely accepted science. Now, Rubio is no dolt, even though he plays one on TV for voters. He’s a smart guy and he likely understands the principles, if not the science, behind the actual age of the earth. But, his answer, or non-answer, points out the biggest problem faced by the Republican party. They have spent decades denying science and playing to the irrational prejudices of older, mostly white, bible-believing, voters. They play these games not because they believe this crazy stuff, but because these views get crazy people to vote for the rest of their agenda. The problem, of course, is that crazy people don’t vote, they secede.

The GOP game plan works as long as the majority of voters are white, Christian and aging, but that is changing. In the last several elections cycles, the electorate has begun to move away from the traditional voting blocks that Republicans have spent so many years crafting. Young voters, most nearly as smart as Marco Rubio, are seeing the mess that old, white guys in government and business have created. Women are consistently breaking with a GOP platform that attacks their health and welfare. Black, Hispanic and other minority voters are forming an ever-more powerful voting block that rejects Republican attacks on immigrants and the rights brown people. When you add together the young, Black, Hispanic and women voters we are seeing the formation of a new, national agenda that often breaks with the views of the traditional Republican voter.

A recent Pew post-election poll points out some of the very real problems faced by the Republican Party. Age matters, and so does ethnicity. Barack Obama beat challenger Mitt Romney by a margin of 60% to 36% among voters under 30. In 2000, 74% of under-30 voters identified as white. In the recent election that percentage dropped to 58% and both of those groups form a growing block of voters.

The times they are a changin’ and the problem is that the GOP has not fully recognized that fact. Rachel Maddow recently pointed out that beltway Republicans have begun making noises that sound like change. They are backing away from silly tax pledges, they are de-emphasizing the importance of immigration reform and abortion rights as platform planks. The conundrum for the GOP is that many state legislature are proceeding full bore with the decades-old conservative mantra of gay marriage, contraception, evolution and science denial, and immigration reform. Not to mention total secession. In many, if not most, of these states, the female and minority voter is not nearly as important as it is on the national stage and legislatures continue to be made up of mostly old, white, males. So, while the Potomac Republicans make at least some superficial effort to court the new voter, folks are still seeing the same old, same old from Republicans in their states and they continue to flee the Republican Party in droves.

How does the Grand Old Party modernize their world view? How do you quickly turn away from a time-honored strategy that has begun to lose elections when most of your members haven’t gotten the memo and continue to antagonize the very voters you will need in national elections? Until Marco Rubio is able to give a forthright and honest answer to questions of science this is something that we will continue to see Republicans struggle with and we can only hope that it is a very, very long struggle.

Just sell it harder

Chairman of the Tea Party Express:

“There’s plenty of blame to go around, but at the end of the day, the Republican Party has a branding problem,”

She also said that the party needed to be more aggressive in promoting its message.

In a country where half the population now has black or Hispanic neighbors, it becomes harder and harder to see our fellow citizens as objects of hate. In a country where most of you neighbors can’t afford decent health care, how do you continue to justify the Emergency Room as your primary health care provider? Yep, the message is just fine. All we need to do is tweak the rhetoric a bit.

Rachel Maddow spelled it out nicely:

“Ohio really did go to President Obama last night, he really did win. He really was born in Hawaii, and he really is, legitimately, president of the United States again. And The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month. And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy. And the polls were not skewed to oversample Democrats. And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad. Nate Silver was doing math.And climate change is real. And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes. And evolution is a thing! And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal by us. And nobody is taking away anyone’s guns. And taxes have not gone up. And the deficit is dropping, actually. And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. And the moon landing was real. And FEMA is not building concentration camps. And UN election observers are not taking over Texas. And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in this country are not the same thing as communism.”

Yes, as long as the GOP remains in its fantasy bubble, denies science-based reality and continues to regard gut-instinct pundits like Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Grover Norquist and Fox News as bastions of truth and enlightenment I will continue to have this giant, silly smile on my face.