Comment to Andrew C. Revkin/New York Times on "Resilient" Polar Bears

"No threat of outright extinction within a century or more" shouldn't be that calming. "No outright extinction" doesn't rule out "endangered" or "rare". Also, a century isn't much at the tail end of "110,000 years". Neither does the relative safety of polar bears say much about the overall gravity and complexity of the global climate situation. For example, the polar bears may survive, and the Arctic may even reconstitute to one degree or another, but human beings will nevertheless have felt the impact of rising sea levels, perhaps including more Katrinas or worse.

It seems to me that we humans are shortsighted due to our own brief lifespans, and are all too happy to put off change even though we know our present course is leading to big problems in a decade or two, or even a century. Well, a century will include the lifespans of the grandchildren of those alive today, and they'll have learned from us either to seriously address or to mostly ignore global environmental problems. We knew in the sixties and seventies that pollution was a big problem, and already there were people experiencing its direct, toxic effects. We put band aids on a few of those problems when the media created sufficient pressure. Now, looking at increasingly powerful weather events and the melting of the ice caps, it seems that the next wave of chickens has come home to roost, and the pressure should be vastly increasing to reverse some of the damage we're doing. Indeed, some astronomical event, sometime, may have a much greater impact than we're likely to generate for a few decades or even centuries (sooner or later we'll figure out how to do that, too), even as our own chickens keep getting bigger and uglier. But in the meantime, why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Not only do we put off dealing with predictable problems, but we accept and tolerate newer and bigger problems as they, ironically in the case of melting glaciers, keep snowballing.

I don't mean to whine or complain, only to realistically describe the challenge which is out there to be met.

Global Warming

Some thoughts triggered by the Times reporting on a recent hoax claiming global warming is actually being caused by bacteria. The times wasn't saying global warming was the hoax, but I was reminded of the doubting Thomases who remain out there.

To those who still doubt Global Warming:

We do know that the Earth is getting substantially warmer on the whole, and the glaciers are getting smaller. One can try to point the finger at other reasons for this, but the fact is that for the past hundred some odd years since the Industrial Revolution, we've been dumping more stuff into the atmosphere -- and on a continuous basis -- than probably in the rest of human history combined. Meanwhile, the theory of global warming seems to have been in place long enough that it should get credit for predicting the changes that are now occurring. I heard of global warming and greenhouse gases as a grade schooler, and I'm in my 40's. So it wasn't an after-the-fact explanation by environmentalists. But blaming "other" factors is pretty convenient for polluters who don't want to change their ways, which means not just industrial giants, but most of us humans in the industrialized world. Hard as it is to believe, the atmosphere holds only a finite amount of air, and the junk billions of people pump into it makes a difference -- same thing for the ocean and the land. So while there may be additional, complicating factors (global dimming from the particulates slowing down the warming from the gases??), I think it's pretty safe to say we've made a mess of a nice planet with our excessive ways. I'm not saying I've just proved global warming, but try on this perspective for a while and see if it doesn't make sense.

Comment to New York Times on Colbert "Candidacy" Discussion

The record needs setting straight on a couple of issues here. First of all, if you're looking for real news, try Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, available on independent radio, Free Speech TV, and the Internet. Stewart and Colbert just give a more enlightened spin on the same news the mainstream media is reporting already. Second, George W. Bush looks much more like Alfred E. Newman (as has already been portrayed in many satirical drawings) than Dennis Kucinich ever will. If you look past his physical features and listen to what he has to say, however, Dennis Kucinich looks considerably more like a real leader than any of the current candidates.

Offsets, offsets

I was looking into Duke Energy's "Go Green" program for consumers in Indiana, and discovered the gee whiz article that my headline links to. Duke charges you extra to purchase presumably "green" power -- really, an offset, to my understanding, because we still personally get the same coal power or whatever that we usually do.

I think Greg Flynn's comment at the link nails the problem. If the big corporations - and we individuals - are serious about cleaning up the environment and reducing global warming, we'll actually cut down our own emissions, not just pay a "feel good tax" everytime we want to pollute some more, in the hopes that someone else who gets the money will make up for our excesses. Not that it hurts to pay it if you're going to pollute anyway, and maybe it will slow us down a bit, like having a curse jar, and produce some amelioration. But the real formula for preserving the environment -- especially now that we really need to actually reverse the damage or face the consequences --is the same as ever -- reduce, reuse, recycle (for best results, in that order). And you must do it YOURSELF! This offset stuff is only accessible to people with extra money, making it more of a bourgeois self-pat on the back than a real solution. If we take measures, I'm afraid global warming is still gonna get us!

Guns again...

They say that guns don't people, people kill people, and that if a killer really wants to kill, he'd find a way to do it anyway.

But, if we could have controlled guns a long time ago, I don't think 33 people would have died at Virginia Tech on Monday. Maybe one or two, which would have been horrible enough -- it can't be nearly as easy to commit mass murder with a knife as it is with a semi-automatic weapon, and someone wielding a knife would be easier to subdue. Nor could it be as easy to build a bomb as it is to purchase a semi-automatic. So probably not 33 people. Some people love their guns. This (and probably most of our problems in the Middle East) is the price we pay.

A Thought and a Quote

When you consider how much was accomplished by Gandhi and Martin Luther King by wielding the nonviolent power of love, just think what could be done if someone of that mindset was elected President of the United States, with all its resources.

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" -- Isaac Asimov, Foundation

Get Me a Job With Edwards!

I posted this to Amanda Marcotte's blog after reading that she nerrowly kept her job working for the Edwards campaign after some x-treme blogging on her part was discovered. I was just hunting for publicity, if you really want to know, and chose to respond to an entry which used a picture of a guy with a tinfoil hat and black helicopters flying behind him. I really did meet the folks with their stories, mentioned below...

I knew somebody with a black helicopter story once. He didn't have a tinfoil hat, but there was another fellow hanging around the edges of the same group who apparently received messages from outer space through his Walkman (this is pre-Ipod, mind you). Since the former story was fairly plausible, I've never quite understood why black helicopters are supposed to epitomize wingnuts. Of course, maybe this means that I am one, or perhaps it's simply that helicopters have wingnuts holding them together at some point.

Maybe the whole "black helicopter = wingnut" was started as a way to cover up the REAL "black helicopter conspiracy". My acquaintance's experience of following a black helicopter to its landing point where some armed people got out sounded like it probably would have been a drug war kind of thing. I'm not saying it is or it ain't, I'm just saying...

Tinfoil I can understand. Completely.

Hey, have Edwards stop by my page, I'd love a campaign job. I have to admit to a certain fascination with both Obama and Clinton, but if John's gonna dig in and take a serious stand against the war, I could get behind him.

To Be Honest

The BBC Have Your Say asks "Would you pay more for an environmentally friendly car?" I want to say "of course!" But...

Honestly, the answer is "Yes, as long as I can otherwise afford it." I want to be totally committed to the environment, but in lean times I also weigh my short-term personal costs and benefits, and buy "conventional" rather than organic food. I think producers of goods, from food to cars, need to get past the mentality that being green is a luxury option, and find ways to make all our essential products both green and affordable. Given roughly equal prices, I will definitely go green every time.

That's all the space BBC allows for responses. I hate to admit it. While I am struggling with a bit less than an average income, it isn't easy being green when it comes to buying stuff. Some stuff I can do without, but $2.50 a pound for organic apples translates into "I don't buy a lot of organic apples". Other things that I eat all the time, I buy organic when I can, conventional (i.e. pesticide sprayed) when I can't. I take it this makes me more or less a regular person. Regular people want to be green, but also have to worry about the pennies. We understand there is a cost to saving a couple of bucks not being green, but sometimes, global warming's reality notwithstanding, the threat of bankruptcy seems more imminent. Given the same price at the cash register, though, we'll choose green every time, and that translates into a competitive advantage for the company that can do the greenest product the cheapest. That's hard; we want to factor out sweatshops too! I'd like to hear your ideas about how it's possible to make profits with a conscience. And sure, you can give me a hard time for my compromises, but what I'm trying to point out is that to really make a difference, we have to make green affordable to the masses.

Folks Are Still Denying Global Warming

Look people, we've known about the theory of global warming for decades. I first heard about it in primary school, and I'm 43. What's happening now seems very close to what was already being predicted 30+ years ago, and we have unprecedented numbers of people pumping unprecedented amounts of gunk into the air like it was an unlimited sized trash bin. Sure, we all want to blame it on something else so we can roll over and go back to sleep. Wake up!

The Law is Not for Sale

"Can Patents Restrict Our Advice To Our Clients?" is the title of an American Bar Association Continuing Legal Education seminar for which I received an ad today in my email. I have to say, the very title floored me; I had never heard of such a thing as patenting the law. I contacted the CLE department of the ABA with this response. I believe I will be saying a lot more in the days to come; I'll have to understand this more, but I believe it to be a genuinely earthshaking development Please read the original ad to get more of a flavor; the headline links to it (right click and select "Open in a New Window" or "New Tab" to keep the Raving Moderate nearby ;).

This is my gut response to the title of this seminar. I will look into participating, but in the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you could forward it to the participants; perhaps it will influence the conversation.

If patents can "restrict our advice to clients", then people of no particular means will lose access to adequate, quality legal counsel, just as many have lost access to quality medical care and drugs. In theory, the law is the law and should apply to all people equally; it will become more like a vise if people have to pay extra in order to learn how to dance around its grip. The ability or inability to pay a lawyer creates enough disparity as it is. Perhaps right now we are just talking about sophisticated business methods, but there is a slippery slope in setting this precedent. The first thing that will happen is that I will not be able to save a client a substantial-to-her, but not huge, sum on her taxes, because it would be wiped out by having to pay the license for somebody's patent. The next thing will be that somebody will have to go to jail because the Public Defender's Office doesn't have patent licensing in its budget.

The ease with which people can patent just about anything these days seems likely to stifle innovation, rather than encourage it, as it gets to the point where you can't turn around without violating someone's patent. Patenting legal maneuvers will just mean that everybody, not just inventors and corporations, will start having to pay even greater tribute just to go through life.

I'm sure there's a First Amendment issue in here somewhere. Can we restrict legal speech in the interests of commerce? Shouldn't legal speech restrictions be subjected to strict scrutiny, since legal speech is at the essence of how the legal system operates?

Since I lack the time and funding to patent my arguments here, I suspect that someone else will do it first, and I will thus be silenced, as licenses on the patent will not be offered.

Sounds like a shocking development. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It has also added a rather sour taste to my plan to go into estate planning. How can we non-patent lawyers practice law from day to day if we have to constantly be doing patent searches? Perhaps I am being naive, presuming too much, or being overly pessimistic, but as I say, this is a gut reaction, and I'd certainly like to know why it is incorrect, if it is. If I may sloganeer just for a moment, The Law is Not For Sale! I hereby claim at least a copyright on connecting this slogan with the issue of patenting the law.

Save the Polar Bears!

My comment added to the petition by Defenders of Wildlife to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

It's bad enough - worse than we think - when species most of us have never heard of go extinct, eliminating another piece of the web of life in which we have evolved to thrive. When species we have grown up loving are allowed to disappear, it is a symbol both of how hard we have become, and how oblivious we have become to our own survival as the hands of the "Doomsday Clock" are moved toward midnight. The same global warming that threatens the polar bear was likely a major contributor to the intensity of Hurricane Katrina. I was recently in New Orleans, where almost a year and half after Katrina very few people have moved back into their damaged homes - another symbol of how hardened and oblivious we have become.

Minimum Wage Haters - Get Over It!

Back to Townhall.com, a truly great resource for getting the Raving Moderate P.O.'ed enough to write something. Brian Lambro cites some studies which he says indicate that raising the minimum wage, as has just been done by the new Congress, may cause some additional unemployment, particularly among minorities. One of the sources is the Hoover Institution, which has some impressive neoconservative ties. Another is Dr. David Neumark, who has been funded by Walmart at times, but who is also applauded by the anti-Walmart Watch for standing up to them in reporting some of his findings about their company. Nevertheless, I take the use of statistics with a grain of salt, as far as Lambro's interpretation and the inference of cause and effect. I would ask, for example whether the influence of NAFTA and other influences on employment have been factored in, and what techniques have been used. I'm not fully qualified, nor do I have the time, to fully analyze all of the stats (since I have to make a living, too, and this ain't it. Gotta magazine/blog/think tank with a paying position for a Raving Moderate? Call me!). But I think I have some salient points to make within my current confines, so here goes my response.

(Original article is entitled $7.25? A Truly Bad Idea. Stop by there, my post created an interesting argument with a fellow named Fergus, so I had more to say...)

There has to be a balance. Given that we have a minimum wage, it ought to go up enough to at least keep pace with inflation and be adjusted annually; otherwise its original goals are constantly being eroded. I don't think this first raise in ten years even keeps up with the cost of living. And an annual adjustment would not be as much of a jolt, much as we adjust each year to a small increase in the price of stamps.

We could apply Mr. Lambro's logic in reverse. If raising the minimum wage, costs some jobs, we could reduce the minimum wage to a penny, and thereby have enough jobs for everybody.

But of course, that would be absurd. Human beings need a certain baseline to get by. While our standard of living is a little higher in this country than most others, it's often easier to fall through the cracks, too. Unless you live at home with your parents, even the new minimum is not going to get you far, nor help you to educate yourself to move up to a higher level.

Of course, if you operate a small business and are currently paying minimum, this hurts, and may result in some layoffs, too. I'm not saying it's an easy problem; it's just that there is a balancing act to be done, which is glossed over by Mr. Lambro's offhand point of view. Employers, keep in mind that paying someone to help with your business is your ticket to greater wealth than if you operated completely solo. You ought to be grateful to these folks, as well as them to you, and keep their welfare in mind, too (pardon the expression), as you would hope that they care about doing a good job for you. It's only fair business. It's for sure that if you paid your employees a penny or two an hour, you would be exploiting them, but of course the line has to be drawn somewhere. So it's not easy to say how long you could keep paying them $5.25 or $7.25 and not have it turn into exploitation, given what it costs to live and better yourself these days. We could "let the market sort it out", but we all know that on the whole those with money, power, and experience have a huge advantage in negotiations. Labor laws, including the minimum wage and rights for unions, which have been considerably weakened and subverted over the past two and a half decades, came into being precisely because of the gross exploitation of the early Industrial Revolution.

So find a way to give your employees their extra money. Try to find a way to raise profits and cut non-employee expenses to keep them all on the payroll. Maybe put your own swimming pool on hold for a little while (invite your workers over when you do get the pool, if you're really such a regular person). If you want to protest the government taking your money, consider how much pork President Bush and other politicians sling around, and that half of your federal income taxes, probably more now, go to pay for wars, past and present.

The price of everything is going up. Isn't it fair the price for laborers, who also have to pay for the commodities of survival, should go up as well?

Is Hugo Chavez Going Too Far?

Has Hugo Chavez gone too far? Originally, I liked the fellow, looking at him from a distance. He seemed to care about the poor, and was willing to stand up to the United States, but not in a way that suggested violence on his part. I don't mind a few socialist ideas coming in the form of Social Democracy, which was what I assumed he had in mind. You know, if we're going to pay taxes, I'd much rather have them help people than bomb them. Chavez' "George Bush is the devil" speech at the UN was a bit over the top, but, hey, I enjoyed that, too. Quite a bit, in fact.

But now, given the latest story in the BBC, Chavez seems to be decisively moving away from democracy, gaining Venezuela's National Assembly's approval to rule by decree for 18 months in order to accelerate his "Bolivarian" socialist revolution, replacing his Vice President with a hardliner, and saying he won't renew an opposition TV station's license.

A previous article stated that Chavez was only seeking one year of decree powers. I get the feeling eighteen months may not be enough, either.

When one human being thinks he knows enough to put himself above all other authority, it certainly smacks of hubris. You're going to tell everyone how it's going to be, answer to no one, and silence any opposition that gets in the way? Mr. Chavez, you are not God. Neither are Marx, Lenin or Trotsky, so it doesn't help that you may be implementing their ideas. I am not an ideologue; those guys had some good ideas and some excellent critiques of the way capitalism worked, but their ideas also paved the way for a bloody revolution, a great deal of repression and suffering, and for Stalin.

Let's say that Chavez is as wise a leader as can be, and his decrees are consistently the best thing that could happen to Venezuela. Since he appears now to be afraid to let the opposition even have the debate with him, I actually doubt this very much. But let's just say that it's true. Nevertheless, a precedent will have been set. Rulers can rule by decree. If the power has not been solidified by then, nevertheless it has been made available through appealing to the Assembly. What if the next leader to manage to invoke this power is a Stalin, or a George W. Bush?

I'll tell you what, nothing makes me for grateful for the existence of term limits and a system of government checks and balances than the Presidency of George W. Bush. For all our country's faults, our Founding Fathers were often at least as smart as Marx ever was.

Authoritarianism also tends to undermine whatever mandate comes from the people, which would also tend to strengthen the disrupting hand of ideologues in the United States. This formula could easily be the recipe for a coup sooner or later.

Mr. Chavez gained power more or less democratically (the BBC indicates that the opposition boycotted the last election). If socialism is what the country needs, it should be possible to persuade the people thoroughly enough so that socialism can also be implemented democratically, and with the input of the intellects of many brilliant people, not just the limited vision of a single autocrat and the ideologues with whom he surrounds himself.