Is the Trump transition team targeting members of the Energy Department who are working to save the planet? Kinda looks like it.

Courtesy of WaPo:  

Donald Trump’s transition team has issued a list of 74 questions for the Energy Department, asking agency officials to identify which employees and contractors have worked on forging an international climate pact as well as domestic efforts to cut the nation’s carbon output. 

The questionnaire requests a list of those individuals who have taken part in international climate talks over the past five years and “which programs within DOE are essential to meeting the goals of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.

”Trump and his team have vowed to dismantle specific aspects of Obama’s climate policies, and Trump has questioned the reality of climate change. The questionnaire, which one Energy Department official described as unusually “intrusive” and a matter for departmental lawyers, has raised concern that the Trump transition team is trying to figure out how to target the people, including civil servants, who have helped implement policies under Obama.

Well it appears that Muslims and Mexicans are not the only groups that Trump wants identified and rounded up. It is also any scientists or Energy Department employees who might not be on board with raping the planet and ushering in a global climate Armageddon.

I am almost afraid to wake up tomorrow to find out about the next terrifying thing that Donald Trump is planning for our country.

Survey finds that Americans overwhelmingly want to get away from fossil fuels and move toward green energy sources.

Courtesy of Forbes:  

Americans “overwhelmingly” prefer solar and wind energy to coal, oil, and nuclear energy, according to a Harvard political scientist who has conducted a comprehensive survey of attitudes toward energy and climate for the last 12 years. 

Americans see natural gas as a bridge fuel that falls somewhere in between, offering some benefits over traditional fuels but more “harms” than solar and wind, said Harvard Government Professor Stephen Ansolabehere during a December appearance at the University of Chicago. 

“Americans want to move away from coal, oil and nuclear power and toward wind and solar,” said Ansolabehere, introduced as “the leading energy political scientist in the world” to climate scientists, physicists, economists and public-policy experts at The Energy Policy Institute of Chicago (EPIC). Ansolabehere described solar and wind energy as “hugely popular, overwhelmingly popular.” 

So popular, in fact, that they easily cross the partisan divide that polarizes Americans on so many other issues. About 80 percent of Americans said they want solar and wind energy to “increase a lot,” and another 10 percent or so want it to increase somewhat. 

“In order to get 90 percent, that means a lot of Republicans like solar and wind—more than coal. Everybody likes those sources. This is non-partisan.”

And yet virtually every Republican politician is voting against renewable energy and arguing for more exploration and continued reliance on coal. 

Gee it's almost like somebody is buying them off or something.

New report on climate change should start a worldwide panic. But sadly it will barely be noticed.

Here are the highlights.

1. We're already feeling the impacts of climate change. Glaciers are already shrinking, changing the courses of rivers and altering water supplies downstream. Species from grizzly bears to flowers have shifted their ranges and behavior. Wheat and maize yields may have dropped. 
2. Heat waves and wildfires are major threats in North America. Europe faces freshwater shortages, and Asia can expect more severe flooding from extreme storms. In North America, major threats include heat waves and wildfires, which can cause death and damage to ecosystems and property. The report names athletes and outdoor workers as particularly at risk from heat-related illnesses. 
3. Globally, food sources will become unpredictable, even as population booms. Especially in poor countries, diminished crop production will likely lead to increased malnutrition, which already affects nearly 900 million people worldwide. Some of the world's most important staples—maize, wheat, and rice—are at risk. The ocean will also be a less reliable source of food, with important fish resources in the tropics either moving north or going extinct, while ocean acidification eats away at shelled critters (like oysters) and coral. Shrinking supplies and rising prices will cause food insecurity, which can exacerbate preexisting social tensions and lead to conflict. 
4. Coastal communities will increasingly get hammered by flooding and erosion. Tides are already rising in the US and around the world. As polar ice continues to melt and warm water expands, sea level rise will expose major metropolitan areas, military installations, farming regions, small island nations, and other ocean-side places to increased damage from hurricanes and other extreme storms. Sea level rise brings with it risks of "death, injury, ill-health, or disrupted livelihoods," the report says. 
5. We'll see an increase in climate refugees and, possibly, climate-related violence. The report warns that both extreme weather events and longer-term changes in climate can lead to the displacement of vulnerable populations, especially in developing parts of the world. Climate change might also "indirectly increase" the risks of civil wars and international conflicts by exacerbating poverty and competition for resources. 
6. Climate change is expected to make people less healthy. According to the report, we can expect climate change to have a negative impact on health in many parts of the world, especially poorer countries. Why? Heat waves and fires will cause injury, disease and death. Decreased food production will mean more malnutrition. And food- and water-borne diseases will make more people sick. 
7. We don't know how much adaptation is going to cost. The damage we're doing to the planet means that human beings are going to have to adapt to the changing climate. But that costs money. Unfortunately, studies that estimate the global cost of climate adaptation "are characterized by shortcomings in data, methods, and coverage," according to the IPCC. 
8.  There's still time to reduce the impacts of global warming...if we cut our emissions. Here's the good news: The IPCC says that the impacts of climate change—and the costs of adaptation—will be "reduced substantially" if we cut our emissions of greenhouse gases.

 There are many who think that the damage is too far along and that nothing can be done to stop the inevitable.

Others don't believe there is any problem at all and that these findings are just the imaginative ravings of liberal Chicken Little's.

However there is still time, and if we really start to address the situation with the seriousness it deserves, and focus the scientific community into solving the problems with the same zeal they show for improving computers, we could very well see things turn around to the point that the most troubling predictions will not come to pass.

And in fact some of the recent breakthroughs in renewable energy research have been amazing.

The clock is ticking, so the question remains, are we doing enough, fast enough?

Sadly I don't yet think that we are.

(Source.)

According to Right Wing radio host, it hurts God's feelings if we don't drill for oil. NO, I am NOT kidding!

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

The Cornwall Alliance’s Calvin Beisner, who has previously said that believing in climate change “is an insult to God,” explained on Thursday that the Bible said it was also very rude to not use oil, coal and natural gas. 

“The wicked and lazy master was the one who buried his talent in the ground and didn’t do anything to multiply it,” Beisner explained. “That’s essentially what those who say we need to stop using oil, coal and natural gas are telling us to do. Just leave those resources buried in the ground, rather than pulling them out and multiplying their value for human benefit.” 

Fischer likened the situation to a birthday present he was given at the age of six. 

“I opened up a birthday present that I didn’t like, and I said it right out, ‘Oh, I don’t like those,’” the radio host recalled. “And it just crushed — and the person that gave me gift was there. You know, I just kind of blurted it out, ‘I don’t like those.’ And it just crushed that person. It was enormously insensitive of me to do that.” 

“And you think, that’s kind of how we’re treating God when he’s given us these gifts of abundant and inexpensive and effective fuel sources,” Fischer added. “And we don’t thank him for it and we don’t use it.” 

“You know, God has buried those treasures there because he loves to see us find them.” 

You know I have heard some truly stupid things come out of the mouths of these Right Wing lunatics, but this one really takes the prize.

God "buried those treasures there because he loves too see us find them?"

So I assume that drilling for oil, mining for coal, and searching for natural gas reserves is all a cosmic game of hide and go seek? Or perhaps a holy Easter egg hunt?

Seriously, WTF?

Is that ALSO why it was okay to drive the native population of their land? Because they were hurting God's feelings by not raping the planet? Well that's an interesting rationalization for the continued use of fossil fuels.

You know using this same line of "logic" it kind of makes me wonder why these idiots don't consider the possibility that God may have never wanted them to crap all over this beautiful planet we live on and would like them to find a way to clean up its oceans and rivers, reduce the population currently devouring its resources, and return it to the pristine shape that we found it in originally?

Or did I just read the Bible wrong?

(H/T to 2emptynest)

Yep he went there. President Obama raises the specter of Seamus the dog.

Hah, I love it! That dog on the roof thing is going dog Romney for the rest of his life. (Did you see what I did there?)

By the way Romney better be careful. As it turns out the President may also be a wizard.

I understand it's just a trick of the light, or is it?

There are rogue scientists paid to undermine scientific research in this country and it is making it hard to bring truth to the American people.

Courtesy of Physorg.com:  

These naysayers -- some of whom are paid by interest groups -- have helped undermine action on vital problems despite evidence of the need to respond, said Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history and science studies at the University of California at San Diego. 

They sap convictions by endlessly questioning data, dismissing experimental innovation, stressing uncertainties and clamouring for more research, she said. Over the last half-century, they have helped weaken legislative action or brake political momentum on tobacco, acid rain, protection of the ozone layer and climate change. 

"This strategy is so clever and effective," Oreskes said in an interview this week in Paris to promote a French translation of "Merchants of Doubt," a book she co-authored with California Institute of Technology historian Erik Conway. 

"It takes something which is an essential part of science -- healthy skepticism, curiosity -- and turns it against itself and makes it corrosive." 

Oreskes's book traces the starting point of professional science skeptics to when big tobacco companies were facing the first clear evidence that smoking caused cancer. 

An internal memo, written by a Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. executive in 1969, spelt out the goal of weakening this link with expert help. 

"Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy," according to the document, now placed in a US public archive. 

Oreskes said a blatant example today was the sowing of doubt about global warming. 

A "denial campaign" started to take root in the United States just before the Earth Summit of 1992 and amplified in the run-up to negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, she said. 

"They don't have to prove that they're right. They don't have to prove that there's no global warming," she said. 

"They simply have to raise doubts and questions, because if they can raise doubts and questions, then they can say, 'Well, since the science is not settled,' they allege, 'therefore it would be premature to act on it.' And so they delay action and avoid the kind of actions they would like to avoid."

Okay if THAT does not seriously piss you off then I can't imagine what would.

I think most of us have probably already reached a conclusion similar to this on our own, simply by watching the attacks on evolution in the classrooms and climate change in politics.

Essentially these people are willing to damage our ability to trust facts, simply in the name of greed.

We have seen this happen right before our eyes when it comes to regulating our food, educating our children, and protecting our environment. All powerful people have to do is purchase their own scientists and important information is brought into doubt.

In today's America it appears that money IS truth.  If you have enough of one, you are free to define the other.

President Obama's Weekly Address.

Obviously focusing on creating better clean energy solutions is the way to solve our long term dependence on foreign oil.

Only an idiot would continue to use the "Drill here, drill now" mantra to address this very serious problem. But considering the source, I guess that goes without saying doesn't it?

As we have learned in dramatic fashion this last week, this is a man who solves problems, not one who hides behind catch  phrases and talking points. And knowing that should make EVERY American sleep more securely at night.

What if solar energy got the same subsidies as fossil fuels?

Knowing this is possible, and that American energy companies are fighting to keep it out of our reach, drives me crazy.

Climate activists decide that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not disliked enough to convince Americans to embrace clean energy so they replaced him in their advertisements with Sarah Palin.

This is the old advertisement that the American Values Network would put on city buses.

Now here is the replacement.

The ads will run on about 100 D.C. buses for at least a month, said American Values Network Executive Director Eric Sapp. The campaign is “well into the six-figure range,” he added.

Yeah I think they made the right choice. Seeing that smug face of Sarah Palin next to an oily bird makes me REALLY want to embrace clean energy and piss that bitch off!

Do you know what my favorite part is about this group?  The fact that they are a FAITH based group comprised of religious leaders and people of faith, as well as veterans and military leaders.  There is no WAY for Sarah to fight back!

What is she going to do, start insulting her base?

Ah Karma, I just love it when you make an appearance!