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Tonight's editor: patrickz
Please remember to rec the BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 73
All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.
This is the sense of urgency and priorities that we need:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was in Portland Thursday touting a new residential energy efficiency program here, vowed to continue fighting climate change even if it costs Democrats politically in the next election.
"This is about saving the planet, not the Democratic majority," Pelosi said after touring a newly weatherized home in Northeast Portland. "We have to be thinking about the next generation, not the next election and that is what this conversation is about.
She's obviously been reading the science. A few weeks ago, the National Research Council released its comprehensive report on the consequences of climate change. As reported by Nature:
For example, the report shows that each 1 °C of warming will reduce rain in the southwest of North America, the Mediterranean and southern Africa by 5–10%; cut yields of some crops, including maize (corn) and wheat, by 5–15%; and increase the area burned by wildfires in the western United States by 200–400%. The report also points out that even if the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is stabilized, the world will continue to warm for decades. If concentrations rose to 550 parts per million, for example, the world would see an initial warming of 1.6 °C — but even if concentrations stabilized at this level, further warming would leave the total temperature rise closer to 3 °C, and would persist for millennia.
And it rendered some explicit conclusions:
"The report says an 80% cut is meaningful," says Jay Gulledge, director of the science and impacts programme at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia. "I've never seen that stated before, but it is based on the best calculations for the carbon cycle."
But even if the world's leaders finally got serious about addressing the issue, it's not as if the problems will just go away:
For example, carbon-dioxide-induced warming is expected to be nearly irreversible for at least 1,000 years, according to two studies published in 2008 and 2009 (refs 2,3). "There is more certainty [in this report] than we've seen before," says Steve Cohen, executive director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City. "It is blunt, direct and clear. Unlike the IPCC reports you don't see any hedge words."
Pelosi made the case that federal investments in greenbuilding will create millions of jobs. Which is an important point to keep emphasizing. But unlike most politicians, she clearly understands the larger picture.
"We have to make up for a lot of lost time," said Pelosi, blaming the Bush administration and Republican congressional leaders for refusing to address the threat of climate change seriously. "We have a moral obligation to preserve the planet."
If only others would follow her lead.
Republicans would despoil our country in pursuit of the oil and coal that are so profitable for their corporate sponsors, and so bad for our planetary climate. They are pushing energy policies that are hastening the end of the Holocene epoch, and the start of the Anthropocene epoch.
This comes from Bill McKibben writing at HuffPo:
We're Hot as Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Anymore
If we’re going to get any of this done, we’re going to need a movement, the one thing we haven’t had. For 20 years environmentalists have operated on the notion that we’d get action if we simply had scientists explain to politicians and CEOs that our current ways were ending the Holocene, the current geological epoch. That turns out, quite conclusively, not to work. We need to be able to explain that their current ways will end something they actually care about, i.e. their careers. And since we’ll never have the cash to compete with Exxon, we better work in the currencies we can muster: bodies, spirit, passion.
We need to shame them, starting now. And we need everyone working together.
One of the interesting side-effects of Hurricane Katrina for me has been the outpouring of music born of the hurricane and its aftermath. Not all that surprising actually, given the rich musical history of New Orleans and the surrounding area. But this past weekend I heard the music from New Orleans tack in a different direction. I heard a song that deserves to be the title track for any eventual documentary on BP's gulf oil gusher - John Boutte singing Nobody Knows Nothing.
This April, after Eyjafjallajökull had thwarted a planned visit of an old friend in Spain and stranded us in my native Germany, my partner Deb and I spontaneously decided to take my dad's car to explore relatively nearby Italy instead. Our first stop on our impromptu tour was Cinque Terre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and National Park consisting of five villages located along beautifully terraced hillsides on the Ligurian coast.
While it was bound to be a marvelous vacation, I did not expect to be stepping into a model study for ecocities and villages, which, for those of you who know me, inevitably put me in trigger-happy and note-taking research mode...
It's an important question. Oil and Corexit are toxic even neurotoxic. Brain lesions even.
Gulf States, Feds Report on Seafood
Release date: 12/09/2005
The states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, along with U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have analyzed hundreds of samples of fish and shellfish from the waters affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. To date, the data show no reason for concern about consuming seafood from the Gulf region due to the hurricanes.
As always, fishermen should avoid catching seafood in areas with visible oil sheens or slicks, and should only harvest live seafood
That was then, in 2005.
How did five million barrels of oil simply disappear?
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs points to a pie chart on the BP oil spill during the Daily White House Press Briefing, Washington, DC.
AFP/ Getty Images 
OK there you go -- Only about 26% Residual Oil is left.
"Residual" -- that's like "smoke" -- like the Morning Fog.
That doesn't sound so bad. ... It should be gone in No Time, right?
Don't bet on it.
Even NOAA Administrator, Jane Lubchenco, still has some concerns ...
Coal ash contains numerous poisonous chemicals, including arsenic, selenium, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, boron, thallium, and aluminum. So why are some members of Congress wanting to block action from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson that would protect people from toxic coal ash?
It's true - 139 House members and 36 Senators either signed onto letters asking as much, or wrote their own letters (links to the letters are farther down in this post). What's worse is that the letters are full of misleading information and inaccuracies about the public health risks of coal ash.
The abysmal failure for US Senate movement forward on climate change mitigation legislation has many fathers and mothers, many to blame. And, the blame game is moving around ... along with lots of CYA discussions. To a certain extent, the pointing fingers and 'who me' exercises can get a bit exaggerated because while there is lots of blame to go around, there are people and interests and organizations that merit direct responsibility and many others who have some indirect play in the 'blame' game. Thus, there is lots of blame to go around when it comes to the failure of the Senate to act
Please rec the new Mothership #74 here. This one has expired.
The current ROV DIARY: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #278 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe -Yasuragi
Rules of the Road
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!