A Less Devastated World Is Possible (with Update)

Further responses to the Green New Deal, from John Cassidy at the New Yorker:

Of the stated goals:

"Despite these reservations, [Jonathan] Koomey [a special adviser to the chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute] and [Robert] Pollin [ professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who has helped design a number of Green New Deals for individual states, including New York and Washington], as well as a number of other researchers I spoke with, said the drafters of the Green New Deal were perfectly right to urge large-scale action across many parts of the economy,and they emphasized the technological opportunities that now exist to meet many of the environmental goals that underpin the proposed legislation, if not the exact timetable it lays down. " 

These goals include the end to greenhouse gas emissions using clean energy.

“Right now, we have about ninety per cent or ninety-five per cent of the technology we need,” Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, told me.

Common to the Green New Deal and similar plans "is converting the electric grid to clean energy by shutting down power stations that rely on fossil fuels and making some very large investments in wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal facilities. Jacobson said this could be completed by 2035, which is only five years beyond the target set out in the Green New Deal. At the same time, policymakers would introduce a range of measures to promote energy efficiency, and electrify other sectors of the economy that now rely heavily on burning carbon, such as road and rail transport, home heating, and industrial heating. “We don’t need a technological miracle to solve this problem,” Jacobson reiterated. “‘The bottom line is we just need to deploy, deploy, deploy.”

Update 3/5: “Facing a showdown vote as early as this month over the embattled ‘Green New Deal,’ Senate Democrats are preparing a counteroffensive to make combating climate change a central issue of their 2020 campaigns — a striking shift on an issue they have shied away from for the past decade,” the New York Times reports.

As science-based or practical action reports like the first one above remind us, addressing the climate crisis is not--and should not be--primarily a political issue. The only thing that makes it political to the current extreme extent is the rigid intransigence of the Republican party, which has made climate crisis denial a dogma.  Excommunication along with trolling, harassment, abuse and threats of violence, not to mention political defeat in party primaries, would instantly follow if any congressional or presidential candidate Republican even whispered doubt about this dogma.  So the only way to enact the big programs that are now necessary to save civilization is now through electoral victory of those who will enact it, and by default they will be Democrats.  The Republican party has abandoned the real world, the real future, for the excessive self-interest of a relative few.

Fear of Climate

David Wallace-Wells' new book, The Uninhabitable Earth, has been getting more attention than most books on the climate crisis.  He presents the latest conclusions from the latest research, which is especially dire considering the sobering fact that things have gotten much worse in the past 25 years, when the climate crisis was a known phenomenon:

"It’s also the revelation that we’ve done more damage to the environment since the United Nations established its climate change framework in 1992 than we did in all the millennia that preceded it," one writer noted. "Or, as Wallace-Wells puts it, “We have now done more damage to the environment knowingly than we ever managed in ignorance.”

One of his conclusions about the near future is precisely what I've been saying here in recent years: “The 21st century will be dominated by climate change in the same way that … the 19th century in the West was dominated by modernity or industry...There won’t be an area of human life that is untouched by it.”

There are signs that the pace of this becoming true is picking up, apart from all the severe weather and accompanying disasters which are still mostly confronted with benumbed and willful ignorance. This January, as both newly elected and reelected or incumbent US governors gave their inaugural or state of the state speeches, at least five used the occasion to strongly endorse major action to address the causes of global heating.  They included the governors of New York, Pennsylvania, Maine, New Mexico and Colorado.  California is already on the books in this regard.

The change to a Democratic administration in Michigan immediately resulted in that state withdrawing from lawsuits against the EPA seeking to challenge its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. “Under my watch, Michigan will not be a party to lawsuits that challenge the reasonable regulations aimed at curbing climate change and protecting against exposure to mercury and other toxic substances,” said [new attorney general] Nessel in a statement.

But the big national event was the unveiling of the congressional Green New Deal proposal, which several Democratic candidates for President immediately endorsed.  This comprehensive proposal got some immediate good press.  Its premise in terms of the scope of action was endorsed as accurate by climate scientists. A Green New Deal can give us the freedoms to allow humanity to flourish was the headline to a Guardian opinion piece.

Wallace-Wells admitted it was flawed but praised it as a first and urged Democrats to get behind it: "But even in this larval stage, it’s clear that the Green New Deal is an enormous leap forward — fundamentally, even categorically, more serious than the previous approaches to address the unprecedented threat to human civilization as we now know it."

The Atlantic hailed the coming of "the Millennial era of climate politics," particularly in the person of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, already known on the Internet as AOC, as a chief proponent of the Green New Deal.  As she put it: "Climate change and our environmental challenges are one of the biggest existential threats to our way of life, not just as a nation, but as a world...“In order for us to combat that threat, we must be as ambitious and innovative as possible." 

But once AOC's popularity began to sink in, along with poll numbers showing overwhelming bipartisan support for Green New Deal proposals, and a public somewhat willing to pay taxes to support these proposals, plus the decline in popularity for climate crisis-denying lawmakers, the complex of unsavory forces that comprise the Republican opposition machine began to amp up.

 AOC was quickly demonized, and attacks on Democrats began, characterizing them and such proposals as the Green New Deal as "socialist" and radical. Pundits began to worry whether Democratic candidates were too far "left" rather than whether their proposed solutions adequately address problems. Under this barrage, press turned negative, and the impression that the Green New Deal "rollout" was "botched," and that this somehow tainted or discredited the proposals became conventional wisdom.

Considerable backlash from the current administration and especially the deliberately distracting elements of election year politics--especially the debate over emotional but meaningless abstractions that nobody can define (like "socialism")-- mean that the efforts to address the problems of climate crisis causes and consequences are still likely to be much less than they need to be.

There are also the perennial debates on messaging, on how to talk about the climate crisis in an effective way.  Some say doom and gloom only paralyzes people, while Wallace-Wells thinks that realistic fear is the needed motivator. (His media book tour interviews appear here and here  , reviewed here and here   and a book excerpt here and here.)

Politico highlighted a "change" in semantics emerging principally from weather people:"leading climate scientists and meteorologists are banking on a new strategy for talking about climate change: Take the politics out of it.

That means avoiding the phrase “climate change,” so loaded with partisan connotations as it is. Stop talking about who or what is most responsible. And focus instead on what is happening and how unusual it is—and what it is costing communities."

This tactic isn't new--it's been used at the community level before.  Its danger is a complete concentration on the effects over addressing the causes.  You can't address the causes of the climate crisis without acknowledging those causes: greenhouse gases.  Yet it is almost surprising that this approach hasn't taken over.

 As the effects become more dire and widespread, that is still likely to happen unless people wake up to that danger, with the result of  never-ending and always accelerating efforts to deal with the effects (and the consequences of those effects), while the causes remain unaddressed--and doom the planet to even worse heating in the future.

We most often know the story of something only when it is over, and can look back at events as if the causes and effects were always obvious.  So we don't know the complete story of our civilization's response to the climate crisis.  While "Too little, too late" now seems the likely story, we are in the middle of the events, with lots of information but some that's missing.  Being in the middle of events, we can only do our best, and enact hope by so doing.

Here Comes the Sunrise

The Sunrise Movement is an organization of young activists advocating urgent efforts to address the climate crisis.  A thousand or so lobbied members of Congress recently.  A Think Progress story put it this way:

Spearheaded by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the idea of a Green New Deal has burst into the political mainstream over the past few months, upending congressional climate politics. The proposal responds to recent climate science by calling for a rapid transition away from oil, gas, and coal, and simultaneously seeks to ease the nation’s worsening income equality.

A recent poll suggests that the Green New Deal proposals could have overwhelming bipartisan support with the American public--over 80%.  Despite some powerful opposition,  the proposal to establish a Select Committee on climate is gaining support, thanks to the incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Republicans trying to preemptively kill the Green New Deal idea got surprised when they tried to get their own government officials to say the goals were impractical, only to have those officials say, no, it could be done.

Though Republicans dispute it, there is economic logic to the Green New Deal combining new clean energy efforts with new jobs in clean energy.  A new international study maintains that a major switch to clean energy to meet UN climate goals would mean more jobs, not fewer:

“Our findings show that if we take action to limit climate change, we will have more jobs by 2030 than by not doing anything,” said Guillermo Montt, author of the study and a senior economist in the research department of the International Labor Office, a special UN agency that focuses on labor issues. “More jobs will be created than those that are lost, so the economy and countries as a whole stand to gain.”  Green New Deal proposals pay attention as well to job dislocations that might result.

Thanks to a coincidence of the Sunrise Movement's lobbying at the same time as a major convention of Earth scientists was in Washington, there's evidence that's there is also major support from scientists.  Speaking of the Sunrise Movement, one such scientist quoted by the TP story said:“What I do admire about that is the fact they are using new language. It’s not just, ‘Look at the sad polar bear,'” she said. “This is not talking about climate change like it’s this isolated issue. It’s talking about it in the context of all these other things that people care about. And I think that’s absolutely the right way to look at it.”

Another prominent scientist, Dr. Peter Gleick, went to Capitol Hill himself to discuss climate initiatives:

He met with Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) and a senior staffer with another member of Congress. Huffman had reached out to Gleick to discuss opportunities and critical issues that the 116th Congress might pursue related to climate change, including water issues, an issue on which Gleick is one the leading experts.

(I quoted that mostly because Huffman represents my district.)

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There have been marches and other advocacy on climate issues before, without much visible effect.  But this time may be different, due in part to the nature of the Blue Wave and the fact that some of the newcomers made addressing the climate crisis a major part of their campaigns.

But also due to the urgency.  The Sunrise Movement popularizes the slogan "12 Years," the time the latest UN report allows to prevent the worst climate cataclysm future.  But in fact time is much shorter than that.  The decisions to change must be made right away. Jonathan Watt's summary of the climate summit in Poland ran in the Guardian under the headline:UN climate talks set stage for humanity’s two most crucial years/Decisions made from now to 2020 will determine to what extent Earth remains habitable."

Dino Grandoni wrote in the Washington Post: "The next presidential election is nearly two years away. But it's already clear that climate change will be a higher-profile issue in the 2020 race than it was in the previous presidential contest."

While noting that this isn't a very high bar, he points out that thanks to the announced policy of the current administration, the US withdrawing formally from the Paris Agreements can happen as early as the day after the 2020 election.  That's a tangible marker of the overall urgency.

Another reason climate will be higher on the 2020 agenda, Grandoni said, is the Sunrise Movement, and the Green New Deal.  And this applies not just to the presidential race, but campaigns for the House and the Senate.  According to another Post reporter:

Democrats preparing to run for president have been rushing to shift their plans for combating climate change, highlighting an issue once considered a political liability, especially in Midwestern swing states won by President Trump.

Aides to a half-dozen senators considering a 2020 campaign met with supporters of the Green New Deal, an effort pushed by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) that could turn into a litmus test for Democratic candidates, organizers said."

Meanwhile, there is a new documentary from National Geographic, viewable on line, that shows how Americans are already working to address the climate crisis, and finding new jobs and careers in the process.  It's called From Paris to Pittsburgh.  Here's a direct link to the documentary--just scroll down to Nat Geo Specials.

Towards the Last-Ditch Transformation

As the global climate summit ended its official sessions, the Washington Post reported: "Negotiators from nearly 200 nations drew close to a deal Friday that would nudge the world toward stronger targets for reducing carbon emissions and enshrine a clearer set of rules for how to get there."

According to the Post, negotiations will continue until an agreement can be announced, probably this weekend.  No one expects a groundbreaking agreement, but some progress from the heady Paris Agreement would be an achievement, given the political mischief wrought by the US, which prompted both anger and scornful laughter during the conference.  Update: The deal was announced Saturday.

But there is only so much these conferences can achieve, since they require the agreement of 200 countries.  The Post quotes an unnamed scientist at the summit:“There is no documented historic precedent” for the sweeping changes to energy, transportation and other sectors that would be necessary to hold warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the scientists said, citing the need for a “rapid and far-reaching” transformation of human civilization."  That transformation must come from political energies within nations, as well as more practical alternatives for achieving these transformations.

At least according to some, practical alternatives are probably needed to reliance on the carbon tax, a so far unpopular and regressive way of limiting carbon emissions.  But the energies to jumpstart a transformation politically in the US as well as around the world, beginning with young people, may well be poised to enter the halls of power in 2019.

Young demonstrators are rallying around the cry "12 Years," which is what the latest UN report says is all civilization has to pull back from the point where climate catastrophe becomes civilization-threatening climate cataclysm.  Entering Congress in just a few weeks are newly elected, younger, more diverse Democrats who are rallying around the Green New Deal that one of their leaders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is making a core issue.

These wide-ranging proposals that link efforts to address both the causes and effects of the climate crisis with employment opportunities are already attracting the backing of more experienced legislators.

Moreover, a Post analyst sees signs that climate will be a key issue in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections, and Democratic candidates are already working on it.

Given the information and forecasts that keep getting worse, and the short amount of time to change just about everything, this is a last ditch effort, and it easily could be too little and too late.  But what else is there to do but try?  The measure of this generation is how hard it tries in this effort, the most important in the history of civilization.

In any case, it is inevitable that climate will be just about everyone's job sooner or later.  Best to get started while there's still a chance that the future can still be saved.

More Stuff To Watch For in 2018 Election Results

In addition to the party totals, here are a couple of more things I'll be watching in the 2018 election results.

It's the future versus the big oil companies' big bucks in Washington state, in a fight over a ballot measure that would be the first in the country to enact fees on carbon pollution emitters.

 The Union of Concerned Scientists and some big contributors--like Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg--are for it.  But almost all of the $29 million spent to defeat it comes from fossil fuel corporations.

According to the Atlantic: "Tuesday, residents of Washington State will vote on whether to adopt a carbon fee, an ambitious policy that aims to combat climate change by charging oil companies and other polluters for the right to emit greenhouse-gas pollution.

If the measure passes, Washington would immediately have one of the most aggressive climate policies in the country. The proposal—known as Ballot Initiative 1631—takes something of a “Green New Deal” approach, using the money raised by the new fee to build new infrastructure to prepare the state for climate change. It would generate millions to fund new public transit, solar and wind farms, and forest-conservation projects in the state; it would also direct money to a working-class coal community and a coastal indigenous tribe."

  According to Inside Climate News:"Washington's Initiative 1631 could begin a movement in the U.S. to make the price of fossil fuels reflect their cost to the planet—a step economists believe would be the most effective market mechanism to reduce greenhouse gases."

Also interesting in this regard are three races in Iowa, in which Democrats are actually raising the issue of the climate crisis, even in deep red districts. These include J.D. Scholten, who is running to unseat the infamous--and infamously entrenched-- Steve King.

Inside Climate News: Key in all three of the contested Iowa congressional races are farmers, who have been battered by Trump's trade and energy policies as surely as they've been pummeled by the weather. 

Climate change may not be the leading issue being raised by the Democratic challengers—for Scholten, it's just part of his larger message that King is out of touch—but it is looming in the background, like the wind turbines turning in the horizon in Scholten's campaign ads. This election will test how long a state with 88,000 farms—and more than 20 percent of employment linked directly or indirectly to agriculture—is willing to tolerate elected leaders who deny one of the greatest risks to the farming industry."

"One thing about climate change—farmers care about that," said Timothy Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa. "Maybe not in the same sort of way you hear in a lot of other areas. But what happens with the weather—if it's wetter or drier—that's going to affect farmers' ability to harvest. They care about this."

Also, alternative energy is tied deeply to the farm economy in Iowa. In a state that is second only to Texas in wind power, farmers and other rural landowners earn an estimated $20 million a year from lease payments for hosting turbines on their land."


Meanwhile of course I'll be watching a couple of races in particular: the Democratic congressional candidate George Scott in PA 10, and the 21st district Delaware state Senate Democratic candidate Bob Wheatley.  I wish them well on Tuesday.

Whither the Weather?

With some of the hottest winter and spring months on record in the U.S. just behind us,  these forecasters say we're in for a hot summer.  Their methodology and predictions are a lot more limited than the headline suggests, but the dryness of soil bumping up the temps by a degree suggests how many "small" effects combine to create a cycle that feeds on itself.

Here on the North Coast, by the way, the pollen is so heavy that people who care about such things can't keep their cars clean of it.  More to the point for me, there are more and more severe spring colds that are exacerbated by hay fever.  I'm just coming out of one myself, and I hardly ever get colds.

In Climate Crisis news,  a new study concludes "A safe haven could be out of reach for 9 percent of the Western Hemisphere's mammals, and as much as 40 percent in certain regions, because the animals just won't move swiftly enough to outpace climate change."  This is about the ability of mammals (large and small) to migrate when conditions threaten them.  Apart from the specific animal species ability--which is usually greater than human animals would predict--the barriers are the cities and highways in the way.

One of the fears about Arctic melting is the possible release of methane gas, a very potent greenhouse gas which could accelerate the Climate Crisis beyond current predictions.  A new study shows evidence of methane release in various Arctic locations.

Another study looks at an area where Climate Crisis models predict changes, and those changes are happening: the salinity in the oceans.  The effects of these changes are what the models predict: dry areas getting drier, wet areas getting wetter, which in addition to longterm effects translates into longer and more severe droughts, and more floods.

Meanwhile, fire season in the West started early--for example, in Arizona (above photo.)

Any good news?  Yes. Power generation from carbon-spewing coal in the U.S. has fallen 19% in one year.  But the Obama initiatives to replace coal with green energy may founder as GOPer Congress threatens federal tax breaks for green industry.  Although not of course subsidies to oil and coal.

The Oil Sands of Time

President Obama accepted State Department advice and killed the Keystone oil sands project, as officially announced Wednesday.  The oil sands of time were running out, thanks to the GOPer congressionals' deadline, so it's bye bye pipeline.

Bill McKibben commented: "this isn’t just the right call, it’s the brave call. The knock on Barack Obama from many quarters has been that he’s too conciliatory. But here, in the face of a naked political threat from Big Oil to exact ‘huge political consequences,’ he’s stood up strong. This is a victory for Americans who testified in record numbers, and who demanded that science get the hearing usually reserved for big money."

GOPers gushing the usual oily bullshit from whichever orifice they use to talk, charge this kills jobs, kills energy independence.  Their inflated figure for how many jobs the pipeline would have created was 20,000.  Actual experts say it would have been closer to 6,000.

But according to the Brookings Institution, the growing clean energy industries already employ some 2.7 million in the U.S., with explosive job growth that outpaced the rest of the economy during and after the Great Recession.  Moreover, "The clean economy offers more opportunities and better pay for low- and middle-skilled workers than the national economy as a whole."

Meanwhile, in one industrial city just north of the U.S. border, a coalition of business, government, environmentalists and labor (including the efforts of one of the most dedicated readers of Captain Future's Dreaming Up Daily--congrats, Cousin Lemuel, otherwise known as Bill Thompson) has brought a major wind turbine manufacturing project to Hamilton, Ontario--with an expected 1900 jobs.  These will be the first offshore wind power assembly facilities in North America.

This is just the beginning, if America would get serious. A new study concludes that a truly serious approach to energy efficiency could alone add up to 2 million new jobs in the next few decades.

So the jobs argument is specious, and is only part of the economic story (if you want to reduce everything to that.)  Opponents to the Keystone pipeline cite tremendous costs to protect water, soil and air against pollution, and even higher costs for accidents and the hidden costs (because families mostly bear them) of bad effects on health.  It's a similar story with clean energy--the health benefits are also economic benefits. 

And of course, there's the economic price of the Climate Crisis--which the Keystone pipeline would hasten to its worst case scenarios---with costs that could include the very concept of "economy" as we know it.

In the transitional meantime, an expanding U.S. oil and gas industry has added some 75,000 jobs since President Obama took office.  There's no truth to even this charge, that the pipeline harms the effort to decrease dependence on foreign oil sources.  But apparently a 13% expansion of these industries isn't enough for some of these fossil fuel hot air billionaires.  They have to own the planet, as they ruin it.

War for the Future

Solyndra: it sounds like the name of a new supermodel, or perhaps a new drug you see commercials for on TV that spend half their time telling you about the strokes, liver failure and suicidal depressions you might get if you take it.  But Solyndra is a company that makes solar panels, that has gone bankrupt despite a half million from the federal government, support that began in the Bush administration but was touted by the Obama White House in their green jobs initiatives.  And so it's the toast of Fox News, and has led to congressional hearings and apparent perp walks for executives who invoked the fifth amendment.

Joe Nocera in the New York Times calls it a phony scandal.  He asserts that despite the bad images, neither of the executives has done "anything remotely illegal."  Nor had the company.  Their business failure, he asserts, has everything to do with the drop in prices of solar panels (which they built), largely because China is in this business in a big way.  With not enough big customers and no new investors, the business failed:

"Harrison and Stover are on the hot seat. Anything they say in their defense — even an off-hand remark — can and will be used against them. Their lawyers would be fools if they didn’t insist that their clients take the Fifth Amendment.
Do the Republicans know this? Of course. Do they care? Of course not. For an hour and a half on Friday morning, they peppered the two men with questions about this “taxpayer ripoff,” as Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, described it, knowing full well that Harrison and Stover would invoke their constitutional right to remain silent. Joe McCarthy would have been proud. The purpose of the hearing — indeed, the point of manufacturing a Solyndra investigation in the first place — is to embarrass the president."

It's all about anti-Obama politics, and it's all economically self-destructive:  "Over all, the American solar industry is a big success story; it now employs more people than either steel or coal, and it’s a net exporter.  But solar panel manufacturing — a potential source of middle-class jobs, and an important reason the White House was so high on Solyndra, which made its panels in Fremont, Calif. — is another story. Not so long ago, China made 6 percent of the world’s solar panels. Now it makes 54 percent, and leads the world in solar panel manufacturing. Needless to say, the U.S. share of the market has shrunk. The only way America can manufacture competitive solar panels is to come up with innovative technologies that the Chinese can’t replicate. Like, for instance, Solyndra’s."

So did the Obama administration do something wrong in backing this company?  Nocera says no:
" But if we could just stop playing gotcha for a second, we might realize that federal loan programs — especially loans for innovative energy technologies — virtually require the government to take risks the private sector won’t take. Indeed, risk-taking is what these programs are all about. Sometimes, the risks pay off. Other times, they don’t. It’s not a taxpayer ripoff if you don’t bat 1.000; on the contrary, a zero failure rate likely means that the program is too risk-averse." 

He asks whether the risk was worth taking in the case of Solyndra, and he concludes that it was, because of the industry's potential, economically for America, and ecologically for the planet's future.

GOPer zealots don't seem to care about America winning its future, if there's a chance Obama might get some of the credit.  They want to cut green jobs support.  But as Nocera points out:  the real winner isn’t the American taxpayer or even the House Republicans. It’s the Chinese solar industry."

Meanwhile, besides providing a complete timeline and description of the Solyandra situation,  Climate Progress highlights conclusions of a Brookings Report that the rest of the media is busy getting wrong, concerning the larger impact of green jobs.  For example: there are currently 2.7 million green jobs in the U.S. and the number is growing.  It is a growing sector of the American economy that cuts across all industries and occupations, and encompasses jobs requiring different skills--they aren't all college degree jobs.  And while particular segments that have green jobs have been hurt by the Great Recession,  the overall Green Economy grew during it. 

Which I guess is another reason GOPers hate it so much.  They're only for the "Job Creators" in fossil fuel industries, like the Koch Brothers---whose net worth went up by 40% in the past year to a combined $50 billion (more than the GNP of a number of entire countries, as Rachel Maddow pointed out),  while their companies have shed tens of thousands of American jobs.  With "job creators" like them, this country's economy is doomed.  Unless you count the highly paid p.r. firms and lobbyists they finance, and all their political influence peddling to make sure they make more billions for the rest of their brief lives, regardless of the consequences for the American middle class of now, and the future--no, let's say it right--The Future, because their financing of Climate Crisis disinformation is potentially that consequential.  The Future, by the way, that those solar panels may help save.

It's all part of the GOP class war.  And it's also a war for the future.

Big Green

This U.S. military aircraft flies on 50% biofuels

The U.S. military is huge--it's annual budget is larger than all other discretionary spending put together.  So when the U.S. military does anything, it does it big.  And when the U.S. military changes anything, it is apt to have big effects.

  As a recent Sierra Club Magazine article noted, its energy use is huge, especially petroleum: "The Department of Defense uses more petroleum (and energy) than any other organization on the planet—$13 billion to $18 billion worth a year, depending on who does the math. That accounts for more than 80 percent of the federal government's energy tab."

But there are problems, apart from expense. Petroleum is heavy and must be transported over long distances.  That a particular problem in combat zones.  Here's a fact I'll bet you didn't know: half the U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffered while guarding fuel convoys.

The majority of that fuel moreover isn't used for vehicles but for electrical power: for generators that are usually very noisy, and attract unwanted attention in the field.

So slowly but surely, the U.S. military--including the Air Force and the Navy--are going green, with lighter and quieter solar power, and with airplanes flying on biofuels and hybrid ships.

  In 2007, one out of every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan, and one out of 38 in Iraq, led to a military fatality, according to an Army study examining the link between casualties and energy. The 6,000 fuel convoys that year imposed such a huge cost in lives, manpower, and money that the Pentagon could no longer ignore it, Browning says. "We call them convoys, but we might as well call them targets," says James Valdes, an Army scientific adviser and designer of a prototype trash-to-energy system for combat zones. Adds Paul Skalny, director of the Army's National Automotive Center in Detroit, "This is the number that matters: For every 1 percent of fuel we don't have to burn, 6,444 fewer soldiers have to be involved in convoy operations. And those are sons and daughters and husbands and wives who get to go home to their families someday."  

In addition to mortality statistics are some grim budgetary realities. Getting fuel to combat troops in Afghanistan costs between $25 and $50 a gallon, and sometimes as much as $400. Even at the most peaceful outpost, it's never lower than $14 a gallon. Says Tom Hicks, the Navy's first deputy assistant secretary for energy (a post that didn't exist until last year): "We've realized that the best barrel of oil is the one we don't use."

So the Navy is embarked on building a "great green fleet."  These and other efforts sparked the suspicions of the Senator from Oil and consequent Climate Crisis denier, James Inhofe.  Apart from the Pentagon not having the luxury of denying reality (and so they take the Climate Crisis seriously), here's how Sierra explained the response:

 Just as President Barack Obama pushed renewables while avoiding the word "climate" in this year's State of the Union address, Mabus and other defense leaders downplay any connection between a sustainably powered military and fighting climate change. Sharon Burke, the new director of defense operational energy plans and programs—the closest thing to an energy czar that the Pentagon has ever had—used this strategy when confronted during her confirmation hearings last fall by climate-change doubter-in-chief Senator James Inhofe. Burke shrugged off his suggestion that she was making carbon reduction her priority, saying that her charge was to "improve the military's energy security" and make sure that the Pentagon factors in the true cost of energy for its equipment, purchases, and operations. But she acknowledged, "They are linked together. . . . If we do it right, that will be one of the results, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. But that's not the role of this job."

What makes this a really significant story is the consequence of that first fact:  the U.S. military is really big.  Their growing commitment to green energy means a lot of money flowing into the clean energy economy, especially in research and development.  New biofuels, more efficient solar power transmission--the mind boggles at the possibilities.

Though it's hard to stomach, the truth is that historically, technological innovation and scientific discoveries have very, very often resulted from military funding, or the promise of it.  It goes back at least to Leonardo, and probably back a lot further than that.  So as odd as it might seem, this is one of the more hopeful stories of the year.

I'll Follow the Sun

Just a few days past the famous Bloomsday and of course Captain Picard Day, today is International Solar Day!   

Seriously though folks, of all the green power/clean energy forms out there in various stages of practicability and promise, solar power always has seemed to me to be the most sensible form, with the most potential.

 The sun after all is the ultimate source of all our energy, so why not go right to the source?  Plus--and this to me is the best argument and solar's greatest advantage: its technologies are theoretically and practically the most diversified and scalable.  Unlike wind farms that have to be huge, or wave power that has to be in the ocean, solar power can be generated by very big devices for a lot of people, or by very small devices for a few.  And these days, solar power can be just about anywhere.

I think that's the future: a system that provides redundancy and autonomy, where you have enough power to run your house or even individual devices as well as your city and region.  Solar devices can eventually be made so small that we can wear them, or string them on the outside of vehicles to run them.

With almost no one noticing, solar power has been dropping in price for decades, and new breakthroughs may well be on the horizon to drive the costs down further--the Obama administration is betting on at least one of these.

I'll leave it to the experts to make the range of technical and economic arguments.  But regarding the whole climate crisis/energy crisis future, this is one of the few things I've got a good feeling about.  Other technologies, including some pretty exotic bio-based ones, should also be explored, but as for me, I'll follow the sun.     

We Do Green Things: Followups on the Speech

Responses to President Obama's State of the Union by professional commentators and online bloviators were mostly predictable. If Obama didn't talk at length or at least prominently mention the issue they consider absolutely the most important (or are paid to represent it that way), they call the speech disappointing or a failure.

That would include Joseph Romm at Climate Progress who has already boxed himself in by declaring this a failed presidency months ago. Hard to up the rhetoric from there, but he tried. He's upset because Obama didn't talk about the Climate Crisis. And it's true that he didn't. One can guess by this and other evidence that the Obama White House has concluded that talking directly about global heating does no good, but that promoting policies that address the Climate Crisis--especially green energy--is the better approach. Indeed his speech pinned major economic hopes on America being a leader in green energy, and he followed that up today with a visit to a plant in Wisconsin that makes solar and other clean energy technology.

So green energy advocates are fairly happy, and at least one commentator saw the Climate Crisis connection. There may yet be a moment when Obama can effectively make the kind of call to arms that Romm demands and the situation merits. I have to guess that he doesn't see this moment as allowing for effectiveness by directly confronting the issue. In terms of congressional votes for cap and trade and so on, he's certainly right--they aren't there, and the Rabid Right is spoiling for a fight on the Climate Crisis. Obama may believe that his combination of optimistic "we do big things" American can-do spirit and economically-inspired fear of losing out to China etc. in clean energy tech will have a better chance of motivating actual change. With money behind it.

This really is the heart of the speech, and I'm a little surprised that few today seemed even to see it, or understand it, especially since it was so effective--with such clear approval among those who watched it. The need to act is wrapped in a strong argument for government action as well as business innovation, and that I still believe is the message that will resonate: "We do big things."

Three additional points centered on the energy/education/infrastructure emphasis of the speech. Obama going to a green energy manufacturer today is getting some media attention, but it's hardly the first time he's done this. He's followed up other speeches with such a visit. They've just been ignored. But as Obama said at his most recent press conference, he is persistent.

Second, after noting the media and blogosphere responses today, I admire even more Obama's ability to block out the insider noise and see things from other points of view--of people out in the country, of people in the world, and of history and the future. That he apparently pays more attention to those ten letters from citizens he reads every night than the nonsense on Daily Kos is all to his credit, but it can't be easy. Well, on the other hand, maybe it can.

Third point, and I may be the first to make this one: I see in this address the influence already of General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who he appointed head of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness last week. Apart from whatever the facts are concerning his stewardship at GE, a lot of the points President Obama made are the kind of points that I heard Immelt make, for example in a conversation with Charlie Rose. He's an advocate for clean energy, more attention to research and innovation, manufacturing rather than just services, more American exports, fixing health care, and infrastructure. He claims (though critics dispute this) that he's bringing jobs back to America. Immelt has been a member of that Council for the past two years, so it's not like he's a sudden new voice being heard in the White House. But he's a bigger voice now, and I think we heard it--or echoes of it--in the State of the Union.

To return for a moment to the Climate Crisis, I would prefer that President Obama address this issue with all the rhetorical power at his command. He may need an occasion, or he may need to seize one. I wonder if he has fully appreciated or accepted the implications of recent science, and I am troubled by the resignation of his chief climate advisor Carol Browner. But it's not clear to me--and apparently not clear to the President--what practical effect this would have right now, given the politics. Cap and trade may be dead as the preferred mechanism to deal with that aspect. There may have to be another.

Instead of alienating supporters of the best hope you've got in Washington, Bill McKibben is a strong voice for building citizen and community advocacy, the way Martin Luther King, Jr. and others built the Civil Rights movement and both forced it onto the national agenda, and made it politically possible for JFK to address it and propose legislation with some chance of passage, even though he didn't live to see it pass. It's unfortunately still hearts and minds time on this issue. Why that may be will be the subject of future posts.

Winning the Future: "We Do Big Things"

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama described his agenda for winning the future, with a reasonable tone and a set of convincing arguments. Convincing enough to win overwhelming approval for his speech in the first two polls, including an approval in the CBS poll of 92%.

The President made "winning the future" a refrain as well as a theme:

"The future is ours to win. But to get there, we can't just stand still. As Robert Kennedy told us, "The future is not a gift. It is an achievement." Sustaining the American Dream has never been about standing pat. It has required each generation to sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age.

Now it's our turn. We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit, and reform our government. That's how our people will prosper. That's how we'll win the future. And tonight, I'd like to talk about how we get there."

In support of it, he used two other notable refrains. He talked about unity as a necessity ("What comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow...We will move forward together, or not at all - for the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics.") But he didn't describe a timid agenda, a few minor or meaningless areas of agreement. He talked about major initiatives, with large goals--in education, rebuilding American infrastructure, and innovation, particularly by aggressively growing a green economy, to create jobs and make America competitive in a world of real economic competition, especially in these areas of the rapidly onrushing economy of the future.

He made his arguments in terms that were easy to understand, sometimes by example or the American context, but with the sense that this was a reasonable course, a common sense approach. That was supported by his second refrain: "It makes no sense":

"Today, there are hundreds of thousands of students excelling in our schools who are not American citizens. Some are the children of undocumented workers, who had nothing to do with the actions of their parents. They grew up as Americans and pledge allegiance to our flag, and yet live every day with the threat of deportation. Others come here from abroad to study in our colleges and universities. But as soon as they obtain advanced degrees, we send them back home to compete against us. It makes no sense."

And later...

"Over the years, a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies and industries. Those with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up paying no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and it has to change."

These relatively small and specific examples are politically contentious, which illustrates how warped our political dialogue is. But the common sense of them transfers to the rest of his agenda, even when it is not so modest. And that involves the third refrain: "We do big things."

The President had talked about investing in innovation, renewing infrastructure, improving education, streamlinging and modernizing the federal government. He said we have stopped the bleeding in our economy and now "We are poised for progress." He reminded everyone that these proposals were not out of the ordinary in American history, especially of the past century, when Republican and Democratic administrations invested heavily in innovation, infrastructure and education. He specifically evoked the 1950s by asserting that "This is our Sputnik moment," the moment when we respond to the challenges of innovation or face falling behind other powers in the world.

But with a final example that married innovation and compassion in a characteristically American way, with the small Pennsylvania company that quickly invented the technology and techniques to free the buried miners in Chile. President Obama ended his State of the Union with this:

"Later, one of his employees said of the rescue, "We proved that Center Rock is a little company, but we do big things."

We do big things.

From the earliest days of our founding, America has been the story of ordinary people who dare to dream. That's how we win the future.

We are a nation that says, "I might not have a lot of money, but I have this great idea for a new company. I might not come from a family of college graduates, but I will be the first to get my degree. I might not know those people in trouble, but I think I can help them, and I need to try. I'm not sure how we'll reach that better place beyond the horizon, but I know we'll get there. I know we will."

We do big things.

The idea of America endures. Our destiny remains our choice. And tonight, more than two centuries later, it is because of our people that our future is hopeful, our journey goes forward, and the state of our union is strong."

UPDATE: I swear to you this is true. I had just finished this entry when I checked my email. I had one new message, from Barack Obama. The title line: We Do Big Things.

Weather or Not

How hot is it, still? Weather Underground forecast map for Aug. 5 high temps.

Update: Because of continuing extreme heat in Russia that is destroying wheat crops, Russian President Medvedev said: "What is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, for we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past."

"The year 2010 is now tied with 2007 as the year with the most national extreme heat records--fifteen," Jeff Masters wrote the other day in his Weather Underground column. But then..."Seventy four extreme hottest temperature records have been set in the past ten years (33% of all countries.) For comparison, 14 countries set extreme coldest temperature records over the past ten years (6% of all countries.")

The New York Times reviews two new books on the Climate Crisis: one dealing with the politics of it in Washington, the other on what people can expect in the near future because of it. No surprises on future weather to devoted readers of this site, but perhaps Heidi Cullen's writing (as well as her highly presentable self) will get a wider hearing.

Meanwhile two interesting pieces of research, even considering the likely biases of the organizations issuing them:

First, an Australian study finding that real forests soak up more CO2 than do timber plantations, and for the same reasons that these forests are generally healthier and better for the overall environment: they are more complex and full of varied life than monoculture tree farms.

Second, a North Carolina study that shows that solar power can produce electricity cheaper than nuclear power. Though government incentives are in the mix, it is chiefly attributed to a marked decline in the costs of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems seen over the past decade. At the very least this challenges the growing assumption that only more nuclear power plants can scale up enough carbon-neutral energy generation to make a difference. Personally, I believe that even wind power technologies could turn out to be transitional. If some sort of civilization makes it through the next century, its future is in a combination of large scale (perhaps space based) and very small scale solar power technologies.

Updates on solar at Climate Progress: A major California solar power project has won state approval, and " Researchers from Stanford University in the US claim to have found a new solar energy conversion process that could be twice as efficient as current methods. The process, called photon enhanced thermionic emission or PETE, improves the conversion of solar energy to electricity by harvesting the waste heat generated by the process."

This is Me Blogging

A trenchant piece at Wired on why Americans are slow to accept green technology. I don't buy all of it, but almost.

Some of the best analysis of climate crisis denying comes from a conservative writing in a conservative newspaper. Leading in this Climate Progress thread to some interesting discussion in the comments.

I'm reading a novel by Alan Sillitoe, The Widower's Son, and just read this sentence: "The mixture of purpose and bewilderment on Bavon's exhausted face went straight to his heart."

Purpose and bewilderment. I can dig it.

Consequences: Prepare Now

Catching up to President Obama's announcement on Saturday on a $2 billion federal investment in solar technologies: the significance of this is obvious economically and in the fight to save the farther future from runaway climate catastrophe.

Further, one of the technologies being financed includes ways to store sun-generated energy for use at another time--a key feature in an adapatable power generating and distribution system.

But investment in many solar and certain kinds of wind technologies have another important feature: these are decentralized, local power sources. The ability of communities and even households to be self-sustaining, especially in energy, are key to surviving the Climate Cataclysm period of the nearer future. Soon enough, the grid is going to be more expensive and less dependable. The entire nation will continue to be held hostage to oil supplying countries, or even to what other countries can do to our economy and currency. Wars over oil can continue to cripple our economy.

Anything that increases self-sufficiency, as part of the "resilience" that's become the buzzword in certain quarters, is important--like 82,000 homes to be weatherized this summer with funds from the Recovery Act.

And the homegrown answer can't be left up to coal, which is polluting in every possible way, damaging to the environment which more and more must sustain us, and leaves communities just as beholden to machinations from outside--maybe not in another nation, but in that other country of corporate rule.

So fortunately the ship of state is also turning away from coal, perhaps slowly and even quietly, but decisively. On Wednesday the Obama administration issued new rules governing coal plant pollution.

For the ever-moving target of now, jobs are a key to community and household stability. The writing is on the wall for fossil fuel related jobs. The Union of Concerned Scientists claim that wind power can generate two to three times the number of jobs as fossil fuels. I heard someone on TV assert than even now, there are more U.S. jobs in wind than in coal. Why is this a secret?

The answer for now, the near future, the far future, is all the same: clean local energy and conservation. Just think about what they both might mean for summers with more very hot days and nights, as well as winters with more snow and rain, when you really don't want blackouts and brownouts, or energy it is too expensive to use.

Technology and the Politics of Hope

Can technology save the future? There are a lot of answers to that question, such as "Maybe, if we use it right," "If it doesn't, what will?" or "Sure, if we can afford to buy it from China."

Technology can't prevent a lot of what may happen, not anymore. But it can help us deal with it. And it can make everyone's future better than it might otherwise be, while it may still be able to save the farther future. The future is an adventure, and technology should be part of it.

In an eloquent address at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, President Obama described his efforts dealing with the economy in the political context, and as an expression of his philosophy of government. He also talked about the future, the contributions of new technologies, and specifically, the crucial role of renewable energy technologies.

"But there’s no natural lobby for the clean energy company that may start a few years from now," he said. "There’s no natural lobby for the research that may lead to a lifesaving medical breakthrough. There’s no natural lobby for the student who may not be able to afford a college education, but if they got one could end up making discoveries that would transform America and the world.

It’s our job as a nation to advocate on behalf of the America that we hope for -- to make decisions that will benefit the next generation -- even if it’s not always popular; even if we can’t always see those benefits in the short-term."

He praised Pittsburgh as an example of a community working for the future, transforming itself from the rust belt to green technologies, health care and education. "All of this came to be because as a community, you prepared and adapted and invested in a better future -- even if you weren’t always sure what that future would look like."

President Obama also said that putting a price on carbon pollution is essential to creating a new energy economy, and he pledged to support climate and energy legislation. "And, Pittsburgh, I want you to know, the votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months. (Applause.) I will continue to make the case for a clean energy future wherever and whenever I can. (Applause.) I will work with anyone to get this done -- and we will get it done."

The Pittsburgh speech was Obama's clearest statement yet as President of what Arthur Schlesinger Jr. defined as the politics of hope--the politics that looks forward to the future.

Elements within the U.S., but also efforts elsewhere in the world with stronger government backing, are advancing clean energy technology and capabilities. But as this report shows (among others) is that clean energy is a key to the future of the U.S. economy, not just domestically but in international trade. These opportunities are forging new economic models.

But we are in danger of being left behind. China is advancing more aggressively. Apart from the Climate Crisis itself, this is the greatest challenge to our ability as a nation to safeguard our country's future, and to participate in the world's future.

In a general sense, there are lots of ideas out there for technologies that cooperate with nature rather than fight it. Some combination of them could be revolutionary beyond our imagination, in providing clean energy, in helping us deal with the effects of the Climate Crisis, and even to address its causes directly.

Though we're tempted to see massive projects as evidence of success, the technologies that will give the future the best possibilities will be small-scale, extremely efficient, easy to replicate and use locally by individual families and communities, very hardy, flexible and adaptable.

There are dangerous technologies, too, battling for attention and development money, that appeal to our arrogance. The roles and powers of technology have been themes of thought and art since the dawn of the industrial revolution, and those issues are even more pressing today. We are in many ways dominated now by powerful technologies gone wrong: our extractive energy technologies, our wasteful, destructive and cruel technologies for feeding ourselves, and the other wasteful, destructive and suicidal technologies of our society, such as our technologies of violence and war.

And there is also the apparently strong current--stronger that we might have imagined in this day and age--of opposition to science and the most settled scientific questions. A resurgence of impulses we associate with the Dark Ages. This, too, as much as powerful technologies gone wrong, threatens the future.

In this regard, I am haunted by a scene in the 1953 movie version of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which relocated the action from England to southern California. At one point, the scientists at Cal Tech trying to study how to defeat the Martian invaders, must evacuate to a lab in the mountains. But before they can get there, a panicked mob waylays their truck, destroys their equipment and injures several of the scientists. I wonder if metaphorically this isn't what's happening now, and I fear it suggests what may happen.

Fortunately at the moment we have a President who has a vision of the future and a commitment to science and knowledge. (Also on Wednesday, while at the White House receiving a Library of Congress award for songwriting, Paul McCartney quipped that "it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is.") He is supported by enough Democratic members of Congress to at least get a bill increasing funding for science and science education passed, despite a pathetically cynical GOPer maneuver.

Technology by itself won't save us. But together with the politics of hope, maybe it can help give the future a chance.

The President says he has no doubt that we will create a better future. I have doubts. But doubts don't matter. What you believe will happen doesn't matter. What matters is believing that working towards a better future in whatever ways you can is how you want to live your life.

The Climate Crisis Future

Maybe it's hard to think through the prospects of a Climate Crisis future. People seem to leap from "nah, it won't happen" or "nah, we'll fix it before it gets bad" to "we're doomed! I don't want to think about it!"

But here's part of what we're not thinking about. As Climate Crisis-related problems and phenomena grow, governments and entire societies will be spending more and more time and money on dealing with those problems and phenomena. Eventually it's at least possible if not pretty likely that a lot of society, a lot of life, will reorganize to deal wih them.

This links you to a couple of interactive map that begins to graphically illustrate the landscape of that future. And then there are the same old stories about the consequences, that seem to run in a rotation of repeating studies, like this reinteration of the relationship of hotter climate with more disease and less food and water, with the Washington Post's shocking headline, Ailing Planet Seen As Bad for Human Health. How many times do we have to hear this before it starts to sink in?

Another consequence of dealing with the Climate Crisis problems is that the resources to do a lot of other stuff will be less, much less or just won't be there. That's going to be difficult, but it may have its up side. It's is kind of why I don't worry so much about gene-designed humans or the Internet version of a 1984 total survelliance culture. Because they will cost too much, and the money won't be there.

Neither will the energy. People are virtually blind to the cost in energy of the virtual worlds of the Internet, of GPS, cell phones and BlackBerries and all the other interlocking electronics. But it is huge. And the infrastructure is pretty fragile.

The energy cost of massive survelliance alone is incredible. In James Banford's revealing look at the dubious recent history of U.S. "intelligence," he notes that a new data-mining National Security Agency facility in Salt Lake City will use "the same amount of energy as every house in Salt Lake City combined."

So nobody's geeky toys are going to be worth much, especially if we don't get a better and greener energy infrastructure. It's the heroic struggle of the age, and President Obama was out there on Tuesday, standing in front of solar collectors and reminding everyone that his Recovery Act stimulus includes about three and a half billion bucks to modernize the country's energy grid, matched and exceeded to the tune of nearly five billion bucks from the private sector. This is small stuff so far that can make a big difference. It's a start. (Update: Another link to NPR report on other administration announcements.)

President Obama also used the occasion to assert that consensus is building for a climate bill in Congress, and a climate treaty in Copenhagen. He is using the true and often effective strategy of making this a fight between the future and the past. You can say a lot of things about the Obama administration so far, but it's hard to dispute that symbolically in just about every way, this guy stands for the future. He's out there trying hard to make it happen. Keep hope alive.

Green China

Tom Friedman's column follows up on China's dramatic announcement of efforts to combat the Climate Crisis, with more details about China's commitments for green energy.

China is still a command economy. They are so big that change may come slowly, but the government sets the direction, and things happen.

Absent the real American commitment President Obama wants, this is the 21st century American economic nightmare. Friedman, with his talent for phrasemaking, likens Red China becoming Green China to the impact of Sputnik.

Here's the money quote: “If they invest in 21st-century technologies and we invest in 20th-century technologies, they’ll win,” says David Sandalow, the assistant secretary of energy for policy. “If we both invest in 21st-century technologies, challenging each other, we all win.”

Sunday Reading

Newsweek articles on the economy, especially the lead one by Daniel Gross--why the Great Recession may technically be over but only because the Obama Recovery Act and other federal measures prevented it from getting far worse. Why the stimulus takes awhile to generate jobs and why recovery on the ground may be slow, but once recovery gets going, is designed to be sustainable for the future:

The Obama administration's strategy rests on what some might call industrial policy or excessive government intervention—or even creeping socialism. I call it "the smart economy." It means eschewing the blunt economic instruments we've always used and focusing resources and rhetoric on strategic sectors: renewable energy/green technology, infrastructure, broadband, and health care. It means making investments to run vital systems more intelligently and efficiently, thus creating a new infrastructure on which the private sector can work its magic.

I don't always endorse the views of Bill Maher but this column on Huffington Post is an almost perfect combination of wit and sense, which is to say, he agrees with my analysis. It begins:

How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are.

And in tracing the trend since Reagan for privatization etc. ("Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? But now our war zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work for corporations.") he takes on the ugly destructive spectre of health care for profit. To which I add:La salute non si paga! Health is not for sale!

Along the way, Maher comments on the hypocritical elegies about how Walter Cronkite was the end of an era, which never mention that one major reason for better reporting in the Cronkite era (though it was seldom probing, it was serious): in the Cronkite era the network news division wasn't supposed to make a profit, it was a public service to report serious information that Americans needed to know to intelligently govern themselves. ( "In Uncle Walter's time, the news division was a loss leader. Making money was the job of The Beverly Hillbillies. And now that we have reporters moving to Alaska to hang out with the Palin family, the news is The Beverly Hillbillies. ")

Cronkite and the news are also the subject of Frank Rich's Sunday column in the New York Times: "Watching many of the empty Cronkite tributes in his own medium over the past week, you had to wonder if his industry was sticking to mawkish clichés just to avoid unflattering comparisons. If he was the most trusted man in America, it wasn’t because he was a nice guy with an authoritative voice and a lived-in face. It wasn’t because he “loved a good story” or that he removed his glasses when a president died. It was because at a time of epic corruption in the most powerful precincts in Washington, Cronkite was not at the salons and not in the tank."

Update: A Paul Krugman column lays out the economic reasons why markets alone can't cure heathcare. His conclusion:

"There are, however, no examples of successful health care based on the principles of the free market, for one simple reason: in health care, the free market just doesn’t work. And people who say that the market is the answer are flying in the face of both theory and overwhelming evidence."

So let me repeat: La salute non si paga: health is not for sale!