Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The Breitbart of Climate Change?

by A Siegel

Let's face facts: Andrew Breitbart has been incredibly effective at damaging American society and undermining progressive infrastructure.

With material that legal investigations, reviews by traditional journalism institutions, and other inspections have shown to be "severely edited" material utterly misrepresenting actual events, Breitbart provided the ammunition that enabled the takedown of an organization (ACORN) that had helped -- quite literally -- 100,000s of people (if not more) but had the sinful reality that it had helped educate lower-income Americans about their rights and mobilize them to vote.  Sadly, many politicians who had benefited from ACORN's mobilization efforts and/or had constituents whose lives had been improved due to ACORN activity jumped on the bandwagon to attack ACORN based on Breitbart's "severely edited" videos -- and the damage, defunding, was done before the evidence exonerating ACORN was in. So much for innocent until proven guilty part ...



continued at Daily Kos...

Getting astroturfed: what do Sandra Bullock, Lenny Kravitz and Blake Lively have in common?

by Desmogblog

Other than all being heavyweight celebrities, Sandra Bullock, Lenny Kravitz and Blake Lively - along with many other celebs - have all starred in a Youtube ad created by an oil company (including BP) sponsored organization called the America's Wetlands Foundation that is running a campaign to get the federal government to pay for the restoration of the oil-soaked Gulf coastline.



continued at Daily Kos...

UCS hosts second of four webinars on climate change (with poll)

by hold tight

This morning, the Union of Concerned Scientists hosted another webinar from the National Academy of Sciences presenting the results of their work on climate change. This one addressed 'Limiting the Magnitude of Future Climate Change.'

I posted a diary last week about the first webinar. In it, I provided the background for the studies, and links to the reports that came out of the work.

Today, I will summarize the conclusions of this second report presented in the webinar. You can read a brief summary of it here.

But, first, a personal note.



continued at Daily Kos...

Stop the Senate from Gutting the Clean Air Act!

by Lowell Feld NRDC Action Fund

Just when you thought the U.S. Senate couldn't do any less for clean energy and the environment than it's (not) done so far, we now face the real possibility of what would amount to a "stop-work order" on the 40-year-old, wildly successful (e.g., studies finding benefits outweighing costs at a 40:1 ratio), Clean Air Act.



continued at Daily Kos...

Death Wish 2010: Climate Change Deniers Seal the Greenhouse

by ignatzmouse

In the midst of what is becoming the hottest year on record, what remained of an already compromised address to climate change was stripped from the Obama administration's energy bill. The climate legislation could not pass intact because the administration was not willing to fight for it in the smirking face of climate change deniers, deregulators, and politicians in the pocket of polluters. The will to act for tomorrow, even as the warming daylight breaks our collective sleep, is more fragile than the sheen of atmosphere wisping over this small rock in space. Politicians it seems fear the deniers, fear that they may be accused of foresight in the face of the blind march of corporatism as if allegiance to its ideology trumps all else in its wake. So they make a devil's bargain while the planet cooks and pundits rook. If this administration is incapable of fueling change instead of carbon tycoons, can we ever again hope that climate change will be addressed before the inevitable?



continued at Daily Kos...

Largest U.S. Wind Farm Being Constructed in California

by Lawrence

This may not turn out to be the most germane of diaries, as my head had an unfortunate encounter with a rather nasty rock while hiking the other day, but I do want to write a few lines about this, as it is big news for the renewable energy sector in the U.S.



continued at Daily Kos...

BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 64 - Day 100

by Gulf Watchers

The current ROV DIARY: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV # 248 - BP Gulf Catastrophe - khowell.

Rules of the Road

  • We take volunteers for subsequent diaries in the sub diaries or ROV's as we have playfully coined them.
  • Please rec this mothership diary, not the ROVs.
  • Please be kind to fellow kossacks who may have limited bandwidth and refrain from posting images or videos.

PLEASE visit Pam LaPier's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!



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Arnold Schwarzenegger: "Why would we want to go back to the Stone Age?"

by citisven

In response to California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman calling for a one-year moratorium on AB 32, the landmark law which requires the state to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 25 percent by 2020, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, at a green jobs exhibit in March, had this to say:

Why would we want to go back to the Stone Age?

While it's good to know that there is still a leading Republican who hasn't gone into complete tea party meltdown, this exchange is important because after last week's death of the climate bill it points our attention to where the next big climate battle in this country is going to take place: KAH-lee-fo-nee-ah.



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Earth’s Upper Atmosphere Collapses, Leaving Scientists Baffled

by The Anomaly

The Christian Science Monitor has reported that the layer of gas in the Earth’s upper atmosphere has undergone the largest collapse since the beginning of the Space Age, baffling scientists.

One explanation for the phenomenon could be the fallout of intervention with our climate for military applications.



continued at Daily Kos...

KY-Sen: Big Coal Targets Conway and Chandler

by suibne

Kos had a diary up today (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/7/27/887867/-KY-Sen:-The-latest-on-Rand-Paul-hilarity) mentioning the latest on Rand Paul's hijinks, and also the welcome news that Jack Conway has evened the race in internal polling, and even leads among voters who know both candidates.

However, the Lexington paper and McClatchy are reporting tonight (http://www.kentucky.com/2010/07/27/1365946/supreme-court-fallout-coal-industry.html) that major coal companies have been approached by a lawyer from the International Coal Group of Scott's Depot, WV, about starting up a 527 advocacy group in order to target Democratic incumbents - specifically, Jack Conway and KY-6 House member Ben Chandler.



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[Update x4] MASSIVE Oil Spill in Battle Creek threatens Lake Michigan

by Brainwrap

I've been watching the diaries all day and aside from my own (which, admittedly, underplayed the seriousness of the situation), I haven't seen much attention paid to the latest massive petroleum-based environmental disaster:

(quick update: actually, DingellDem posted about it earlier today but it didn't make the Rec list, which it absolutely should--this is HUGE, especially on top of the Deepwater Horizon mess, of course)



continued at Daily Kos...