Home | Away

The lawns of Antarctica

My legally conjoined significant other Becky and I finally got around to seeing An Inconvenient Truth before I went off to the desert, and it ain’t bad. If you, like me, have been telling yourself you don’t need to see it because you know all that stuff already, go see it anyway. I do climate for a living, more or less, and I got a few important things out of it.

One of those things is that Al Gore is as tempting a subject for hagiography as any living American politician. Watching the movie, I was tempted to forget the former Vice President’s betrayal of the families in East Liverpool, Ohio whom Gore had promised to protect from a hazardous waste incinerator, a promise broken not long after the inauguration in 1993. Or the Clinton administration’s rollover on Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards in that same year, which certainly put us further behind the climate goals spelled out in the movie. Or that administration’s unnecessarily generous subsequent compromise with the timber industry over old-growth logging, Option Nine, which helped speed the degradation of forests that could have been sequestering carbon.  And there’s always the example of Gore benefiting his family oil stock portfolio by pushing the sale of oil drilling rights on sacred land.

At one point during the Clinton-Gore years David Brower, an acquaintance of the Vice President, suggested to Gore that he ought to read his own book.

Vice Presidents in the pre-Cheney era used to be considered relatively powerless, so it might be unfair to lay all the Clinton administration’s environmental gaffes at Gore’s feet. Still, it’s possible that a fair accounting might assign Gore responsibility for a significant amount of governmentally driven damage to the Earth’s climate. Perhaps even as much as a hundredth that done by the Bush administration from 2001-2004. An honest documentary would have at least mentioned those gaffes.

But hell, it’s a campaign movie first and foremost, campaigning both to get people to wake up to the danger climate change poses (and the spuriousness of the manufactured controversy over what is, increasingly, unanimous scientific thinking) and to put pressure on the Bush administration as well. And it’s a damn good campaign movie. As an environmental journalist, I spent eight years of Clinton and Gore seething at Al, and I’d vote for him in a heartbeat so that I could seethe at him again. It would be so much nicer than my current seething arrangement.

Incidentally, we saw the movie in one of those theatres that shows commercials before the feature. There were two commercials shown before our screening. The first was an ad for Chevron. The second was an ad for General Motors. There was a little hissing.

All this came to mind again today during my daily reading of The Mercury, one of Hobart Tasmania’s finest mainstream news sources. There’s a conference of Antarctic researchers taking place right now in Hobart, it turns out, and in his keynote address to that conference, Stanford’s Robert Dunbar predicted that trees will be growing in Antarctica by the end of this century, as a result of CO2 levels rising faster than any scientists had anticipated. From The Mercury:

“The official estimate is that carbon dioxide levels will double by 2100, but it’s looking like getting there faster and then tripling,” Prof. Dunbar said.

“It’s from the burning of fossil fuels, from the production of cement and deforestation. Hopefully we will have come to our senses by then.

“To see a time when CO2 was triple, you’d have to go back 30 to 40 million years, there was no big ice sheet and there would have been trees and grasslands. Already on the Antarctic peninsula there are a lot of invasive plant species, and that’s not just because they’re being tramped in by tourists.”

The sudden temperature rises had prompted the sudden appearance of grass.

I’d heard the trees prediction before, though never uttered in such a formal setting. But grass is growing in Antarctica now? You could knock me over with a drowning polar bear. 

I offer that to you as a rhetorical tool in your next conversation with someone who thinks the whole climate issue is overblown. Grass is growing in Antarctica.

On this subject, Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer have for some years been doing a bit of wonderful wonk work pointing out the conjunction between climate protection and global social justice. Their website, EcoEquity, is a top-notch resource for anyone who’d like to learn a bit more about climate and global politics. Check ‘em out.

In the meantime, I’m working on a list and could use your help. After we elect Gore — or whoever — and indict the Bush administration for climate crimes, we’re going to need a list of poetically Sisyphean (and non-violent) community service assignments for the convicted. I’ve already got Bush clearing brush at the South Pole, but I need some more. Chertoff bailing out the Bengali coast with a gasoline can? Naw: lacks cachet. And Cheney and Rove have got me stumped. Help me out.

Posted by on 07/13 at 07:07 PM

  1. Richard Bruce Cheney conducts live ammo gun safety seminars. His specialty is teaching target awareness by randomly popping his head into trainee’s line of fire. Will occasionally get “peppered”.

    Posted by black dog barking  on  07/13  at  08:36 PM

  2. bdb beat me.  I was going to say, put Cheney to use shooting all the pigeons and rats that will have taken over after the other animals went extinct.

    Posted by  on  07/13  at  09:59 PM

  3. "the sale of oil drilling rights on sacred land.”

    Oh, give me a fucking break.  The “sacred land” was the US Naval Petroleum Reserves.  The Navy was drilling and pumping oil and selling it on the market.  It was an anachronism, having been established a hundred years ago to assure an oil supply for navy ships when they converted from coal to oil.  The government was running an oil business and doing a bad job of it.  Gore recommended that the oil field be sold to get the federal government out of the oil business.  The idea that this working oil field would be taken out of production - that was never going to happen.

    Posted by  on  07/13  at  11:38 PM

  4. Oh, give me a fucking break.  The “sacred land” was the US Naval Petroleum Reserves.

    And before that?

    I recognize it’s American custom to write the previous tenants of this land out of history, but I think their descendants — who still hold the land as sacred, despite your derision — might have other opinions.

    And while the land already was the furthest thing from wilderness, with pumpjacks and spills aplenty — I’ve been there. Have you? — Gore’s move helped make things worse, with significant additional threat to the environment and destruction of cultural resources, as spelled out in the linked document.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  07/14  at  12:07 AM

  5. Spare us the holier-than-though sarcasm. The land was the site of a Kitekamuk burial ground.  They haven’t used it for 150 years.  It’s been an oil field for 100 years.  There were some protests about it in 2000, by people whose main interest was smearing Gore in order to get votes for Nader.  Your link is to a Nader stooge.  Your post and the link say that Gore appropriated “sacred land” for drilling.  That is horseshit.  The land was already being drilled for oil.  That decision was made 100 years ago.  You may think it was wrong but it had nothing to do with Gore.

    No, I haven’t been there, but if I hadn’t written my post you wouldn’t have admitted that the land was already a drilling field.  It would have been bad enough if you’d only been duped.  But now you admit that you lied.

    And you know, in all the time I’ve been reading this blog I have never, ever seen the word “American” used as a slur.  Before today.

    When does Michael get back?  I’ll start reading this blog again then.

    Posted by  on  07/14  at  01:03 AM

  6. I’d go positively Augean on Karl. Find the largest, most noxious feedlot in the country. And then it’s Mr. Rove meet Mr. Shovel and Mr. Broom.

    Can’t seem to think of the right job for Cheney - but I require that he must perform it within earshot of a continually-playing loop of “It’s a Small World After All”.

    Posted by  on  07/14  at  01:26 AM

  7. Chris Clarke, a naderite stooge?  Knock me over with a feather!  I thought he was just another fundie crackpot.

    Posted by  on  07/14  at  01:52 AM

  8. Meanwhile, Occidental Petroleum paid $3.65 billion for Elk Hills and its 670 million barrels of oil. That’s equivalent to about $5.45 a barrel for the oil, without bothering to account for the nearly 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas thrown in as a sweetener for the deal. Today’s spot price for oil is way over $70 a barrel.

    So, whose interests were served by that sale again, JR? Uh, Robert L. Bell? Somebody?

    Posted by  on  07/14  at  08:30 AM

  9. There were some protests about it in 2000, by people whose main interest was smearing Gore in order to get votes for Nader.

    I published reports on the issue in the mid-1990s. The issue didn’t just flare up at election time.

    Your link is to a Nader stooge.

    And the reason for the heat behind your remarks begins to become clear.

    No, I haven’t been there, but if I hadn’t written my post you wouldn’t have admitted that the land was already a drilling field.  It would have been bad enough if you’d only been duped.  But now you admit that you lied

    JR, the post I linked to refers to the land as an existing oil field dating from at least 1922. I think you should maybe take a deep breath.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  07/14  at  09:58 AM

  10. It occurs to me to mention that the theatre in which we saw the movie was also the focus of a sacred land controversy — involving a shellmound and burial site — within the last decade, although the Ohlone had not used it for such for 150 years and the site was for some decades occupied by a paint factory and associated slag heap. Sacred land issues aren’t all pristine mountains and Sedona vortexes, and the cultures that hold certain areas sacred often have long memories.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  07/14  at  10:08 AM

  11. You underestimate Walter Mondale, who was a big deal in Carter’s Administration.

    Posted by Bill Altreuter  on  07/14  at  10:40 AM

  12. Ramones? Ramones!

    Posted by Bob in Pacifica  on  07/14  at  10:45 AM

  13. Good point, Bill! But in my defense: I’m not the only one who’s done so.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  07/14  at  11:04 AM

  14. Rove should be sent to a cow pasture and assigned the job of catching bovine flatulence with his mouth.
    Cheney gets sent to a pig farm where he inspects pig feces on the 1% chance that Osama Bin Laden is sending secret messages via pig slop.

    Sorry, that wasn’t polite.

    Posted by Michaelw  on  07/14  at  12:36 PM

  15. I’d have Rove sniff for truffles, with Deliverance-type country lads “taking care” of him.

    Cheney would be assigned the role of “The Penguin” in a perpetually-touring musical version of Batman.

    I’d think of something for Condi, but Harry Hutton would get mad;

    http://chasemeladies.blogspot.com/2005/04/condi-2008-love-poem.html

    Posted by  on  07/14  at  01:00 PM

  16. Good suggestion, Michaelw!  Especially given some information I’ve seen that shows that methane (the main ingredient in cow flatulence, of course) is a more more powerful heat trapper than CO2. 

    captcha word “front”—not the place for Cheney, at any point.

    Posted by  on  07/14  at  01:04 PM

  17. Deliverance-type country lads

    Rob, the judges have ruled that rape doesn’t qualify as “non-violent.” But your Cheney suggestion is first-rate!

    And I’ll amend the idea I discarded for Chertoff: Condimelda bails out the Ninth Ward with a Vera Wang pump.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  07/14  at  03:58 PM

  18. Cheney and Rover can simply be sent to the poles to touch things, since they have the iciest touch around.  Of course, then they will have Halliburton pump oil out of the ice, but what can you do.

    Posted by  on  07/14  at  05:10 PM

  19. Your link is to a Nader stooge.

    And the reason for the heat behind your remarks begins to become clear.

    I’ll confess to feeling some sympathy for JR on this one.  I remember hearing in late 2000 a spokesman for an environmental organization, in an interview, recite a list of Al Gore’s sins.  It overlapped substantially with the one you’ve given.  What struck me at the time was the intensity of his anger—he could hardly say “Al Gore” without pausing to spit.  Now, I would guess that, on some level, most environmentalists then could figure the probabilities fairly accurately. As you’ve pointed out, Al Gore was at worst 1% as bad as his opponent.  It was to be hoped that every environmentally conscious voter would reckon the odds in the same way:


    “Yes, Al Gore has been a great disappointment to many of us.  However, I will vote for him anyway, because my only other option is to help throw the election to a man whose obvious intention, once elected, is to make the environment squeal like a pig.”

    In the event, it didn’t turn out that way.  The most progressive few percent of all voters chose to vote Nader, many out of a desire to stick it to Al, and we got what we got.  So, if JR is still pissed off about Nader, I say “Bravo, my boy, and be up front about it.”

    Captcha: “appeared.”

    Posted by jre  on  07/14  at  05:22 PM

  20. I agree with your sensibilities for the most part, jre, though in my direct experience that pique you describe was aimed more at Clinton than at Gore.

    I just flinch at the reflexive invocation of Demon Nader when the environmental misdeeds of the Clinton administration are detailed. They were significant, and the fact that Bush is insanely worse is crucial perspective, but not an excuse.

    And I will point out just so someone else doesn’t have to, and civilly, so that we might perhaps avoid another Nader flame war, as the Internets are I think seven Nader flamewars past their capacity, that Nader wasn’t the only reason Gore lost.

    But he was a reason, and he’s also a deeply troubling individual.

    I hope that’s evenhanded and thoughtful enough, in that fine Bérubésian tradition, to forestall the usually inevitable.

    Back on topic: how about Rumsfeld?

    Posted by  on  07/14  at  06:38 PM

  21. that Nader wasn’t the only reason Gore lost.

    Most of those naderites wouldn’t have bothered to vote at all if Nader hadn’t been running, so I’m not too sure that Nader was even a partial cause for gore’s loss, votes that wouldn’t have gone for Gore, didn’t go for Gore, no real loss, and with “liberal” SCOTUS judges voting in Bush’s favor and the right wing media hacking him to pieces and all, it’s certainly the most utterly insignificant reason why Gore loss if it was at all responsible.

    Posted by  on  07/14  at  07:47 PM

  22. Er, well the Deliverance-type lads would be constrained by the non-quaint Geneva Conventions. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

    Posted by  on  07/14  at  08:08 PM

  23. Well, R. Mildred, believe that if it makes you happy.  But the fact is that Nader got over 97,000 votes in Florida in 2000. The official vote count had Bush ahead of Gore by 560 votes.  If one percent of Nader voters had voted for Gore, Gore would have won.  If Nader hadn’t been on the ballot and instead had supported Gore - even tepidly - Gore would have won flat out and going away.  Bush is our President today for one reason, and that reason’s name is Ralph Nader.

    Posted by  on  07/16  at  09:55 PM

  24. And 12 percent of Florida Democrats voted for Bush in 2000. That’s more than 200,000 people.

    captcha: wish

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  07/16  at  10:34 PM

  25. No, Cheney needs to be taking care of the thousands upon thousands of American veterans who got free brain damage with their serving of freedom and democracy.

    Posted by  on  07/17  at  01:08 AM

  26. I hope that’s evenhanded and thoughtful enough, in that fine Bérubésian tradition, to forestall the usually inevitable.

    Back on topic: how about Rumsfeld?

    A gracious and balanced response, indeed.
    OK—for Rummy’s public service assignment, I was leaning toward interrogation technique tester in the Dershowitz Institute, but decided that’s too easy a shot.  How about, in the spirit of tree-sitting and marathon dancing, Rumsfeld does a two-week standing up workathon to raise money for Amnesty International, but with the stipulation that the ceiling be slightly too low for him to stand upright.

    Captcha:  law

    Posted by jre  on  07/17  at  12:43 PM

  27. That became offensive and unacceptable and they wanted to be called Black.

    Posted by Myscarf  on  02/26  at  05:14 AM

  28. Sending you my great appreciation for such a “project” and all my love from across the Atlantic....your friend ..Annette***

    Posted by Web Design  on  02/26  at  07:41 AM

  29. I write everything down on paper as I go along, then transfer it onto the computer. So I’d be thankful I was smart enough to do it :D HEHE.

    Posted by black ties  on  02/28  at  06:04 AM

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below:


Next entry: Sufjan Stevens: "Casimir Pulaski Day"

Previous entry: Scandalous details about Glenn Greenwald!

<< Back to main