arse poetica

How to Win the War on Global Warming

Instead of crawling under the bed w/ a bottle of the strongest stuff I can find and bemoaning the utter horrible destructive insane waste of the last 8+ years, I'm ready to look ahead to a time when we might have a president w/ a brain, some integrity, and a vision of positive government. It could happen.

Considering the looming environmental crisis, we've got to get serious fast.

How to Win the War on Global Warming.

[F]or a country that rightly cites patriotism as one of its core values, we're taking a pass on what might be the most patriotic struggle of all. It's hard to imagine a bigger fight than one for the survival of the country's coasts and farms, the health of its people and the stability of its economy—and for those of the world at large as well.

The rub is, if the vast majority of people increasingly agree that climate change is a global emergency, there's far less consensus on how to fix it. Industry offers its plans, which too often would fix little. Environmentalists offer theirs, which too often amount to naive wish lists that could cripple America's growth. But let's assume that those interested parties and others will always be at the table and will always—sensibly—demand that their voices be heard and that their needs be addressed. What would an aggressive, ambitious, effective plan look like—one that would leave us both environmentally safe and economically sound?

Forget precedents like the Manhattan Project, which developed the atom bomb, or the Apollo program that put men on the moon—single-focus programs both, however hard they were to pull off. Think instead of the overnight conversion of the World War II�era industrial sector into a vast machine capable of churning out 60,000 tanks and 300,000 planes, an effort that not only didn't bankrupt the nation but instead made it rich and powerful beyond its imagining and—oh, yes—won the war in the process.

Halting climate change will be far harder than even that. One of the more conservative plans for addressing the problem, by Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala of Princeton University, calls for a reduction of 25 billion tons of carbon emissions over the next 50 years—the equivalent of erasing nearly four years of global emissions at today's rates. And yet by devising a coherent strategy that mixes short-term solutions with farsighted goals, combines government activism with private-sector enterprise and blends pragmatism with ambition, the U.S. can, without major damage to the economy, help halt the worst effects of climate change and ensure the survival of our way of life for future generations. Money will get us part of the way there, but what's needed most is will. "I'm not saying the challenge isn't almost overwhelming," says Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund and co-author of the new book Earth: The Sequel. "But this is America, and America has risen to these challenges before."

Read further for recommendations. Share with friends. I really think that this is one of those issues on which Americans can find common ground. I've given up on the apocalypse-loving weirdos and the intractable capitalists, but it's possible that we could reach even them. Hopefully that pull-together spirit hasn't completely left us (though, to be honest, I do despair).

Maybe this will help: How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.

Heckuva Job, Bushie

81% in Poll Say Nation Is Headed on the Wrong Track.

Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.

In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.

Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.

A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.

It was not reported if that 4% worked at Halliburton and its subsidiaries.

Robber Barrons Unite

Dear lord!

Report Says That the Rich Are Getting Richer Faster, Much Faster.

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

The poorest fifth of households had total income of $383.4 billion in 2005, while just the increase in income for the top 1 percent came to $524.8 billion, a figure 37 percent higher. (emphasis mine)

The total income of the top 1.1 million households was $1.8 trillion, or 18.1 percent of the total income of all Americans, up from 14.3 percent of all income in 2003. The total 2005 income of the three million individual Americans at the top was roughly equal to that of the bottom 166 million Americans, analysis of the report showed.

The report is the latest to document the growing concentration of income at the top, a trend that President Bush said last January had been under way for more than 25 years.

Shut yer lying piehole, you vile huckster.

Earlier reports, based on tax returns, showed that in 2005 the top 10 percent, top 1 percent and fractions of the top 1 percent enjoyed their greatest share of income since 1928 and 1929.

Can't have another Gilded Age. What should we call this one? Maybe the Gelded Age? Don't see the (neutered) Dems doing f*ck-all about B*shCo's rampant looting.

Oh, There are Asses Involved Alright.

Wow, that's just vile.

Who needs credit cards when you have a junior vagina?

Doesn't anyone w/ a clue work at any of the companies involved here? Sell your asses, girls! Charming.

________________

UPDATE: 12.12.07: Wal-Mart has pulled these idiotic things from the shelves! Way to go, feministing!

My Children, Is This Really Necessary?

Not that necessary is the first word that springs to mind.

Oh dear.

Really? Jeebus in rock-climbing gear and on a Harley? Really?

And the Lord sayeth that it be unto the markets to decideth, and thus it was.

Le Week-End

A smattering of images from the weekend, during which there was not near enough slouching around, though these pix seem to tell another story.

Finny always finds the best seat in the house.

How much money does C*ca-C*la have that they can make all new bottles for a seasonal campaign? And what brave new world is this that I bought this because I simply had to blog it? Ha. (Now who's going to drink it?)

Menu at Super Taqueria where the platillos are indeed muy delicioso. And this time I had horchata, mmmm.

Marketing hysteria. Found in the travel section of the local big box store. On principle of my love for civil liberties I refuse to employ these symbols of our national disgrace. Maybe I'll use them for dog poop or something equally fitting.

A walk in the tall grass. Man, that felt good. (I'm mighty pigeon-toed here.)

Maximize Dynamic Infomediaries

This gives me a rash, a hacking cough, watering eyes, a sneezing fit, and the heebie jeebies. I am clearly allergic. My most hated word: impactful. Aaaaaaaarrrggghh!! Run away! Run away!

web economy bullshit generator.

[Pictured: Ipecac.]

You Can Sell Anything

I have a visceral reaction to stories like this. (You can't sell that! It belongs to the world!) Why am I so offended?

::sigh::

Magna Carta Is Going on the Auction Block.

The 2,500 words fill a page that is a couple of inches shorter than this one, but almost as wide. The faded letters in Latin are unreadable in places. Something that looks like a scraggly, russet-colored tail hangs from the bottom.

It is the document that laid the foundation for fundamental principles of English law. Angry colonists complained long before the Boston Tea Party that King George III had violated it. The men who drafted the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights borrowed from it.

It is Magna Carta, agreed to by King John of England in 1215 and revised and reaffirmed through the 13th century. The tail dangling off the page is a royal seal.

And it is about to go on sale.

[snip]

Mr. Redden arranged the Magna Carta auction quietly, so quietly that Sotheby’s did not tell its own employees why it was changing arrangements for other auctions. James Zemaitis, the director of Sotheby’s 20th-century design department, said he was asked to give up a room at Sotheby’s headquarters on York Avenue at East 72nd Street that he had reserved for a pre-auction exhibition of his own.

“All they told me was: ‘David Redden is selling this really important document, the most important document of all. Can you give up this room for us?’ ” he recalled. “And I’m like, ‘Sure, but what is he selling, the Magna Carta?’ ”

Yeah.

Losing Language

What a beautiful--and devastating--way to put it.

Researchers Say Many Languages Are Dying.

"When we lose a language, we lose centuries of human thinking about time, seasons, sea creatures, reindeer, edible flowers, mathematics, landscapes, myths, music, the unknown and the everyday."

We can help.

We're #42! We're #42!

Offered w/o comment.

US slipping in life expectancy rankings.

Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries.

For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.

Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.

"Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries," said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier....

Where to begin? An equitable and just health care program predicated on prevention would be a nice start. Okay, so one comment.