How Many Times Can Rep. Mike Coffman Be Wrong About Global Warming In One Debate Answer?

When Republicans like Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado try to accept some climate science while still rejecting the need for their polluting donors to cut carbon emissions, they somehow end up sounding even dumber than if they'd just denied climate science outright:

Asked whether humans contributed significantly to climate change, [Coffman] responded that he did not think so.

Wrong. Here are 10 reasons why.

Asked whether climate change could be reversed, he answered, “Don’t know.”

Wrong. We can reverse climate change, though all we really need to do is stop accelerating it.

Asked by a Post moderator, “What? Sir?” Coffman said, “Um, no.”

Coffman quickly sought to clarify his answer, backtracking to say humans do contribute to climate change, but the magnitude of the influence is unclear.

Wrong. Temperature increases we've already seen are at least 75% attributable to manmade pollution.

“On the climate change issue, I just think the science is not quite settled."

Wrong. The greenhouse effect has been established for hundreds of years, global warming was predicted decades in advance, and it's now been confirmed by observations.

"Does it have an impact? Yes,” Coffman said. “Do I know how much of an impact it has, man-made climate change? I don’t know. But I think we need to do everything responsible to bring down carbon emissions. Sometimes, my worry is we go too far."

This is a good place to point out Rep. Coffman has taken nearly half a million dollars from the oil & gas industry in his career, making oil & gas his top industry patron.

“What happens is we push, particularly manufacturing jobs overseas to a country like China, that has no environmental rules, and those products are made with greater carbon emissions than otherwise would have been made in the United States. So I think there has to be a balance to the issue here.”

Wrong. China has announced plans to limit carbon pollution and is rapidly trying to cut is coal dependence in the face of rising protests over its insanely dangerous air pollution.

So that's a 6th wrong, but this answer comes closest to the truth of Coffman and other politicians firmly in the pocket of polluters: Your only choices are letting American polluters smash the planet or letting foreign polluters smash the planet! Or maybe a balance between those two!

Taking back our energy choices from the control of polluters is no more a possibility in Coffman's world view than accepting climate science.

If you have a few dollars laying around, donate to Coffman's Democratic challenger Andrew Romanoff.

Jon Stewart Proves Climate Science Deniers Wrong With 3rd Grade Science

In 2014, 26 years after James Hansen first told Congress that global warming is now happening, why is the People's Climate March still necessary? As Jon Stewart explained on last night's Daily Show, because the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is run by climate science deniers:

The Daily Show
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Bristol County DA Sam Sutter Is The Best, I'm The Worst

A few weeks ago I questioned why Bristol County District Attorney Samuel Sutter was pursuing charges against two anti-coal activists. Sutter told me on Twitter that he hadn't been allowed to act or even comment on the charges until Jay O'Hara and Ken Ward had their day in court. The minute they did, Sutter not only dropped the charges immediately, he publicly supported the activists, saying, "I agree that climate change is one of the greatest crisis the planet has ever faced and that we have to act more boldly now."

And Sutter didn't stop there. Last weekend, he went to New York City and joined the People's Climate March, where 310,000 Americans called for climate action:

So glad my family was able to join me for this historic moment. Here's me & my son Cliff at the #PeoplesClimateMarch pic.twitter.com/yYvClp3se4
— BristolDA Sam Sutter (@DASamSutter) September 21, 2014

Was I completely wrong about Sam Sutter? All I can say is ...

Today Show Accidently Proves NYC 11-Year-Old Totally Safe Without Parents

Kids on NYC subway, Flickr's Victor Shoup

New York City 11-year-old Kareem Granton ran away from home last spring and spent five days hanging out at Chuck E. Cheese and riding the subway before the police found him. The Today Show presented this as a HARROWING TALE of a near-teenager somehow surviving without a parent monitoring his every move, before giving us a "social experiment" that purported to prove how dangerous everyday life is for kids.

Today's implication was that Granton could've been murdered at any moment, even though half a million NYC students take the subway or bus to school every day, and no less of an authority than New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says it's perfectly safe for children ages 8 and up to ride the subway to school by themselves.

So to show how life is actually terribly risky in URBAN HELLHOLES like New York, The Today Show's Jeff Rossen sent an 11-year-old BY HIMSELF to extremely safe, busy public areas, then told bystanders they were history's greatest monsters for not immediately treating him like a kidnapping victim.



"At New York's famed Coney Island amusement park, Bjorn boarded ride after ride with no mom or dad in sight," reported Rossen, with absolutely no hint of self-awareness that he was actually describing an idyllic day for an 11-year-old of any previous generation. When Bjorn asked questions of strangers, they helpfully gave him whatever he needed.

Fortunately, Rossen was able to turn to John Walsh to inform people on the boardwalk that Bjorn was actually lucky to have survived the hour without being murdered by a lurking predator:

"Yeah, but he seemed comfortable and confident, self-assured," replied one. "He seemed old enough, it's broad daylight, lots of people around."

But Walsh pointed out: "They're not going to be crying or hysterical. And kids are so vulnerable, at that age particularly. They're so trusting, they're so innocent, and you don't want the bad guy to come up and say, 'I can help you.'"

Even if a child looks totally safe and secure, you must still treat them like they're terrified and in grave danger!

The experiment continued at a much quieter park where Bjorn walked through a group of adults, passed women pushing strollers, and listened to a musician. No one even looked twice. When the Rossen team had Bjorn sit alone on a bench for many minutes with no guardian in sight, no one said anything.

An 11-year-old sitting by himself with no one bothering him in a park filled with parents, and no one called the police? YOU SAVAGES.

The moral of the story: If we see an 11-year-old outdoors alone, we should be constantly asking him if he needs help. But having spent my entire childhood roaming the streets of Boston with friends with not one horror story but plenty of Kareem Granton-esque adventures, all I could conclude was:

• Bjorn had fun
• No one bothered him and he didn't hurt himself
• Whenever he needed help, there was always a grownup right there happy to assist him

What Today didn't say is that America's kids are as safe today as they've ever been, but there are real questions about how much harm we're doing by overprotecting our children and arresting parents for letting their go kids outside alone.

Minutes later, Today launched into a new warning to parents: "Kids hooked on the Internet can suffer from chronic sleep deprivation, poor nutrition and academic failure."

Might letting them out of the house once in a while by themselves ease that problem? Sorry, we'll have to leave it there!

The Must-Read Book of the Moment: Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything"

Seems like this is the book everyone's talking about this week. Joe Romm of ClimateProgress.org says Klein is right that unchecked capitalism will destroy civilization. Time to go look for $22 in my couch cushions & I'll try to get up a review of my own.

CNN: All Sizzle, No Science

The same CNN that laid off its entire science, environment and technology team sent an entire brigade to produce a live feed of Bill and Hillary Clinton flipping steaks in Iowa 16 months before the caucus:

The media scrum as the Clintons do the grilling photo op at the Steak Fry, from our live CNN camera in the middle pic.twitter.com/9g0yjy0756
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) September 14, 2014

CNN never pretended the science layoffs were about money. CNN turns $600 million annual profits and is owned by Time Warner, a $60 billion company that's reported $3 billion profits in consective years. It could hire 100 science journalists, but it chooses instead to endlessly debate if global warming is fake anytime it's cold in winter.

CNN can afford to produce world-class journalism. As Jay Rosen writes, it's made the choice to instead to produce state fair-quality crap.

Concord Monitor Nails Scott Brown's Climate Science Flip-Floppery

Climate science supporters often get too caught up in worrying about knowing every scientific detail. All you need to know is climate scientists say man-made carbon pollution is fueling rapidly-accelerating global warming and our politicians not only need to accept that reality, they need to have a plan to deal with it.

If a politician rejects that reality or, like Mitt Romney, accepts science when he's courting moderates but denies science when he's courting big-money polluting donors, he's asking for his leadership to be questioned. Today the Concord Monitor editorial board simply and directly calls out Scott Brown's climate science cowardace:

When running against Sen. Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, Brown said climate change is real and in part driven by human activity. In New Hampshire, when asked if he believed man-made climate change has been scientifically proven, he said “no.” We await his general election position.

Oh! In the face! IN THE FACE.

Bill Koch's Anti-Cape Wind Group Distances Itself from Itself

To no one's surprise, Bill Koch's "Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound" front group for billionaires who hate looking at distant windmills has pledged to continue fighting Cape Wind despite the fact that the project is now committed to creating up to 1,000 jobs in New Bedford.

The statement from Audra Parker, the Alliance's top lobbyist, calls Cape Wind a "project already struggling under the weight of lawsuits". Audra doesn't say, but those lawsuits have either been filed by the Alliance directly or by partners like the town of Barnstable, which has taken at least $400,000 in Alliance money to pay lawyers. Why isn't the Alliance taking credit for its own lawsuits?

I've worked for or volunteered with several non-profits and at all of them, if we filed a lawsuit that slowed or stopped something we opposed, we'd be desperately trying to take credit for it. We'd have spent months or years rallying grassroots supporters behind our cause and we'd be thrilled to deliver them a win.

The Alliance is doing the exact opposite because it has no grassroots. It's pure Astroturf, using Bill Koch's green to buy the appearance of public support and hoping you can't smell the plastic.

Cape Wind Signs New Bedford Deal. Will Koch Keep Fighting?

Cape Wind has signed a lease agreement to stage its 130-turbine project in Nantucket Sound out of New Bedford's South Terminal, reports Ariel Wittenberg in the Standard-Times:

Cape Wind will pay a total of $4.5 million in rent to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, which owns the 28-acre facility, for two years. During that time, Cape Wind will be the only operator of the facility and the terms of lease allow for two one-year extensions.

Cape Wind has said that the assembly, staging and ocean construction of the project will create 600 to 1,000 jobs. Once in operation, the project is expected to employ 150 people, at least 50 of whom are expected to be based in Falmouth to do maintenance on the Nantucket Sound turbines.

The lease agreement is significant not just for Cape Wind but for New Bedford and the commonwealth's future involvement in the offshore wind industry. City officials have long stated that being the first port to stage an offshore wind farm will help the city to attract future projects and industry manufacturers.

Cape Wind also had held a lease option in Quonset, Rhode Island. Audra Parker of the William Koch-funded "Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound" had been trying to use the Quonset option to divide Massachusetts on Cape Wind, warning Cape Wind would dump New Bedford for Quonset. Various local anti-wind activists like Frank Haggerty joined Parker in pushing the talking point, demonstrating their reasonableness in the comments of Parker's letter:

Y'know, the Nazis had solar panels that they made the Jews wear.

The bottom line here is that Cape Wind is delivering on its promises to harvest clean offshore wind energy for Massachusetts and to bring new, long-term jobs to New Bedford. Meanwhile, the polluter blockade of New Bedford wind energy jobs has finally and fully crumbled. If Bill Koch wants to keep fighting to protect his beachfront estate views from the horrors of distant windmills, it's going to mean putting real people out of work in a city that desperately needs the jobs.

Will Koch carry on his quixotic crusade, or will he finally tell his army of lawyers and lobbyists to stand down? We're about to find out.

New Data: Climate Crisis Accelerating Faster Than Anyone Expected

Public statements about climate change, whether from scientists, journalists or politicians, are always tempered by an element of "surely at some point reasonable people will decide to act."

But it's 2014 and the world has yet to collectively act, and now the data is screaming at scientists that the climate crisis could be much worse than anyone predicted.

And tomorrow Congress will again fail to act, but no one will freak out because at some point, I'm sure someone will have to fix it, right? Right. Glad we settled that so we can go back to enjoying low-cost-today coal, oil and fracked gas, comforted by the knowledge that future reasonable people will pay the horrible bill that comes due.

Even Koch-Funded Push Poll Shows Majority Support For Wind Tax Credits

The American Energy Alliance, a virtual subsidiary of Koch Industries, has a new energy push-poll out today. Not only are the questions rigged, the sample is skewed – while only 26% of US population is age 55 or older, 45% of poll respondents are 55 or older. Asked the most pressing issue facing America, this group’s #3 answer is “President Obama.” (???)

But one question contains a revealing result for the strength and bipartisan depth of support for government incentives for wind energy. Keep in mind that by this point in the poll, respondents have already been falsely primed to think tax credits mostly benefit foreign companies and don’t work:

9. Companies that generate electricity using wind power get a tax credit from the federal government which is paid for by taxpayers. In general, do you think that is a good thing or a bad thing?

51 Good thing
37 Bad thing
12 Don’t know/refused

The poll then comically keeps pushing respondents further and further against wind (well what if a turbine fell on your dog, would you support wind tax credits then?), but the poll's damage to the Koch's message is done. It's more proof that, as Joan Walsh wrote for Salon this week, Democrats should fear the Koch machine's money but not its message.

Are Anti-Cell Tower Activists Making Up Science?

AT&T wants to add mobile phone antennas to the top of a water tower in Dartmouth, MA. Are local NIMBY activists citing a made-up "study" when the truth is they just don't want to look at the antennas?

Here's the line that caught my eye in the New Bedford Standard-Times coverage:

Tucker Lane resident Amy Goulart cited Boston University and Harvard University studies that have called cell towers "a radiation hazard."

It just sounds funny - Harvard and BU usually put out studies on their own. Have multiple studies showing different things been combined to claim something the individual studies didn't? Or is someone putting the two names together just because it sounds more believable that way?

But more broadly, a study that showed that result would be big national news, altering the planning process for every cell tower that came after it. Yet a Google search turns up no direct links to a study like that.

Instead, the "studies" turns up as frequently referenced - but never directly linked - by anti-cell tower activists, often in smaller newspapers like the Standard-Times where corporate profits are prioritized over giving journalists and editors time to fact-check.

More alarmingly, the reference is often changed, again seemingly embellished to add false credibility:

• "More than 40 physicians and scientists at Harvard and Boston University Schools of Public Health claim cell towers are a 'radiation hazard' and 'public health emergency.'" (example)
• "Over 100 physicians and scientists at Harvard and Boston University Schools of Public Health have called cellular towers a radiation hazard." (example)

In reality, the Federal Communications Commission says, "radiofrequency emissions from antennas used for cellular and PCS transmissions result in exposure levels on the ground that are typically thousands of times below safety limits." The FCC concludes, "there is no reason to believe that such towers could constitute a potential health hazard to nearby residents or students." Don't believe BIG GOVERNMENT? The American Cancer Society says, "Cell phone towers are not known to cause any health effects."

Look, I don't care whether AT&T gets its cell tower in Dartmouth (I have Verizon), though it's frustrating that cell service around here stinks in part because NIMBYs fight every single attempt to add a tower. It's fair to ask if companies like AT&T (2013 profit: $18 billion) should sweeten the deal for communities to speed the process. As we already know, cash is a miracle cure for "wind turbine syndrome."

But much like with wind turbine opposition, it sounds like anti-cell tower activists are spreading phony science because "I don't want to look at them" doesn't sway people in the face of a clear public need. (If I missed something and this study does exist, please post a link in comments.)

Will You Feel Safer if MA Anti-Coal Activists are Imprisoned? (UPDATED)

Bristol County wants to put two anti-coal activists in prison for the crime of trying to stop climate change, reports the AP's Philip Marcelo:

Environmental activists Ken Ward and Jonathan ‘‘Jay’’ O’Hara say they don’t intend to dispute many of the facts of the case during their jury trial, which opens Sept. 8 in Fall River District Court. Instead, they want to prove that global warming is real and that bold action is needed to stabilize the planet, according to their website, LobsterBoatBlockade.org.

The two are charged with disturbing the peace, conspiracy, failure to act to avoid a collision, and negligent operation of a motor vessel for the May 2013 incident at the Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset. [...]

The defendants say they face months, if not years, in prison if convicted. A spokesman for the Bristol district attorney’s office declined to comment.

The protest delayed one shipment of coal for one day. That's worth "years" in prison?

From start to finish, the Brayton Point protest has been met with embarrassing overreaction and wastes of taxpayer money from local government. The police chief in sleepy Somerset spent $30,000 on riot gear specifically for the peaceful protest and had his officers pose for media looking ready for war while brandishing billy clubs.

How is the public's safety enhanced by trying to imprison these activists? Was Big Coal in danger of scratching its anchor? The only message being sent here is that DISSENT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED, even if the status quo is steering us towards catastrophe.

Bristol County DA Samuel Sutter should drop these charges.

UPDATE: The DA dropped the charges! It turns out Sam Sutter is wicked awesome.