Thursday, February 26, 2009

Time For Civil Disobedience At Coal Plants?

Climate Progress reports:
Inarguably, “Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet” as our top climate scientist, James Hansen, has explained.

Hansen will be joining more than 2,500 people who have registered to participate in “the largest act of peaceful civil disobedience on global warming in the country’s history” — this Monday, March 2 at the Capitol Power Plant. The Plant is owned by Congress and burns coal to heat and cool numerous buildings on Capitol Hill. Details can be found at the Capitol Climate Action Coalition website, where you’ll find this video from Hansen urging participation:



Continue reading.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Chistopher,


I don't tend to post becasue....well who cares, I doubt I'm going to change any minds - it's not my business. But I've noticed an increase of "global warming will end the world" posts from you, and I just want to present a few things for you to consider. The only reason I'm even taking the time to post is because having read your work you seem open to new ideas and an active learner - which is always a good thing no matter what you do!

Now, in the interest of full disclosure I should tell you I don't work for the coal or oil industry, and I'm a big fan of many, though not all, green initiatives.

I attended a very liberal private college and was sold on the idea of global warming. It's real, we have to do something right now, etc. I had a friend, a friend who is a scientist in the filed of genetics, who challenged me. He tends to be moderate and simply asked me to look at few pieces of information - he's a data guy, he goes where the data points him. So I did, and I was surprised, not to mention a bit confused. So first, let me list off a few websites for you and then i'll comment.

http://www.climateaudit.org/index.php?p=166

and www.climateaudit.org in general

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3229696&page=1

http://www.drroyspencer.com/

http://www.prisonplanet.com/deja-vu-all-over-again-blogger-again-finds-error-in-nasa-climate-data.html

And I can't find the last link again but it talks about galactic cosmic rays and how they naturally cause global warming, or more accurately climate change.




Now, feel free to read those if you so choose, but after I did and then continued to do some more research, here's what I learned - the "science" behind global warming sucks.....and it sucks hardcore. The politics of grant money behind global warming is even worse. The Seattle branch of NOAA is a complete mindfuck - if you don't believe in global warming you are out. Worse yet if you even take a look at data that might suggest otherwise, you get scolded.

With that said, I still think global warming could be a reality, and even if it isn't I see little benefit to pouring tons of CO2 into the atmosphere at the rapid rate we are currently. Additionally, even if man-made global warming isn't real, there are TONS of economic benefits to things like updating our power grid and increasing our use of wind power. That alone will help out our trade deficit dramatically and reducing funding to what I consider to be a primitive society in the middle east (debate that later if you want).

So, I ask you to do a bit of looking at the other side, study the "science" that has been done thus far and see if you still feel as strongly about man-made global warming as a reality. I don't, but I rarely state that because if I do people mistakingly assume 20 other things about me rather than asking why. I want an electric car, I want wind and solar power, and I want less trash and pollution, I DON'T want to drill offshore or in ANWR, but I'm not convinced on global warming any longer. I think the real science jury is still out, and until politics removes itself from the science we won't be able to reliably know the answer.

Unrealted but curious - you talk about science a lot, but what was your undergrad work in? Did you have much experience with the scientific method, or do you trust what is printed in various studies?

Thanks,

A fairly frequent reader