Today is Earth Day and we humans have a challenge to meet.

We are living in a time of enormous import.  The world is changing in ways we humans are as yet ill-prepared to survive, yet alone thrive.  Furthermore, it is not a coincidence that so many of our most critical problems are coming to a crest at the same time.  Peak oil. Water wars. Global warming. Mass migrations. Financial turmoil. Dwindling food supplies. Extreme ideologies. Mass extinction. These problems come of a world straining to be home to an ever increasing number of humans facing enormous change.  

The problems we face are linked together in ways that we are just beginning to understand.  We humans have been fruitful and multiplied and now we have filled almost every niche this world provides.  Even in the harshest climes, from the icy poles to the most extreme deserts, one finds humans eking out a living. Yet, as we spread and occupy this earth, by our very existence we have changed the world we claimed.

Throughout 2007 the signs of global warming became inescapable and a realization that the world climate is changing much faster than ever imagined has started to sink in.  Politically we are stymied because we seem to be incapable of mustering the will to truly address the problem.  

That excellent energy bill that was just signed by George Bush?  When you look at the fine print, the vast portion of the funds set aside to help combat global warming are devoted to technology for sequestering carbon instead of promoting efficiency or developing clean, renewable energy sources.

Wow. When Jon Swift wrote about the Joe Klein controversy, he added a point that was I found especially salient to today's discussion.

If any real journalists think I've written something that is inaccurate, let me know and I'll just append a correction way down at the end of the post or delete the inaccuracy altogether and hopefully no one will notice.

Comment:

Energy companies have no incentive [to reduce energy usage] because they make more money in the current system.

Well yes.  In most parts of the country, this is absolutely true.  

The standard business model for energy companies is the more watts your customers use, the more money the company makes.  Indeed, under the current business models, it makes sense for energy companies to sell their customers hair dryers for heating a home because, by gosh, that would really help rack up the profits.  Yet, it doesn't have to be that way.

Scientists have found that carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere much faster than had been predicted.  Carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere has accelerated since the late 90's when the increase had been averaging around 0.7% annually.  Since 2000, the increase has been 2.9% per year (4 times greater!) which results in an increase of carbon dioxide  that is 35% more than the previous estimates used in the IPCC models.  And the increases are much greater than had been used for setting the targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions needed to avoid the worst effects of global climate change.  

Today, the Houston Chronicle reported that Texas consumers have decided that the state's experiment with energy deregulation has been a costly failure.  Rather than bringing about lower costs, Texans have seen their electric energy bills go up more than all but three other states.  

"It's like there's a penalty for being a Texan when it comes to your light bill," said Mike Coleman, a Cypress homeowner who also is responsible for the electric bills at an industrial equipment supplier with offices in four states.

Below the fold are some specific points from that piece:

Dkos writer oxon recently wrote about melting permafrost and how lakes in Alaska are now boiling due to the release of methane gas.  This is a follow-on report to his piece.  The story he references from Science Daily mentions that researchers are now finding methane bubbles rising from lakes in the Alaskan tundra.

Last month, UAF researcher Katey Walter brought a National Public Radio crew to Alaska’s North Slope, hoping to show them examples of what happens when methane is released when permafrost thaws beneath lakes.

When they reached their destination, Walter and the crew found even more than they bargained for: a lake violently boiling with escaping methane.

Dr. Stephen Biddle testified before the House Committee on Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on July 25, 2007. Over at Hullabaloo, tristero has a nice take down on how bad the sensible foreign establishment's thinking is if Biddle is part of it and how idiotic Biddle's conclusions were after laying out the terrible choices we face in Iraq. Biddle's recommendation is that we stay the course because there is a slight possibility that things will work out okay -- or as Kevin Drum quoted from Slate:

Biddle also said (again, expressing his personal view) that the strategy in Iraq would require the presence of roughly 100,000 American troops for 20 years — and that, even so, it would be a "long-shot gamble."

How wonderfully peachy keen.

eRiposte explains that the Democratic Congress is failing in the job the American people sent it to do.  As he and Glenn Greenwald have said this week, the poor poll ratings for Congress are due to their not standing up to Bush.  And eRiposte warns that if the Democratic leadership does not do a better job of asserting themselves they too can lose their opportunity to change our path.

So, Senator Reid, Rep. Pelosi, and all Democrats in Congress - this is a historical moment. Will you take the opportunity to change the face of America and bring positive and progressive change? Or will you squander this opportunity just like George Bush did after 9/11? The world is watching.

Yes, the whole world is watching.  Because the world knows that if the Democrats continue to screw up, the future can be mighty bleak.  

Newsweek had a significant story about the Global Warming Deniers where they lay out the history of those who have actively tried to keep Americans confused about global warming and prevented any national action that might have addressed the problem. Starting before 1990, the naysayers backed by ExxonMobil and a number of other corporate interests have been sowing doubt on the science of global warming.  They've had a huge influence on the American public's understanding of the issue and have put up barriers to every proposal that could have cut back our greenhouse gas emissions.  

Lots of interesting panels, roundtables and presidential forums happening at YearlyKos this week.  Today I attended the Global Warming Roundtable and found it to be an urgent call to arms.  As Navin Nayak of the League of Conservation Voters said, even the progressive movement isn't spending enough time or attention on the problem of global warming.  And he noted that the next President will shape the world in which we live.  When you look at major legislation, the biggest and most critical bills only get one bite at the apple to get past and we really need to get this bill right the first time in order to affect the future in which we will live.  Global warming is such a critical problem and we have so little time to address it that what we really need is a significant push from the netroots to help build the momentum.  The public must demand action on this subject and this will only happen if we all work to pressure our representatives that we expect them to address this issue now.  

Updated: Please don't miss Cunctator's live blogging of the session.  (Thanks to Adam)

Did you know that a couple of American attorneys, Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, are the only people who can prove they have standing in a suit charging the government of illegally spying on American citizens without a FISA warrant?  And how do they know?  They were passed a "top secret" document during disclosure in a case when the government was considering putting their client on the US Treasury watch list for Islamic charities that the government believed are funding terrorists.  The document provided positive proof that they were being spied upon by the government because the document contained a record of private phone calls they had with their client.

Senator Hagel has always been a rock solid conservative, but his increasingly harsh criticism of Bush's war in Iraq is causing him to be pushed off the bus. Hagel has been outspoken about the mistakes he sees in Bush's foreign policy, but until recently has been a reliable vote backing the administration's and Republican policy even when he originally had voiced opposition or criticism.  In January this year, I noted that Newsweek reported that the long term friendship between Hagel and McCain was beginning to unravel.  McCain and Hagel friendship started because they were Republican Senators shaped by the fact that they both actually served in the military and experienced war.  Yet, as McCain more tightly clings to Bush's war in his run for President, Hagel has only become more vocal in his criticism and has even opined that impeachment might be the only answer for making Bush be accountable to the nation.

An important fact to note about global warming is how this crisis challenges humanity in ways no other crisis has done before.  It challenges us by forcing us to see how we individually and collectively are responsible for changing the very ecosystem of our planet.  And it challenges us to do whatever we can to address the problem before it is too late.  It's not enough to wait for someone else to start leading.  It's not enough to say we won't do anything until someone else (*) steps up to solve the problem.   This problem cannot really be solved without looking at how we act globally, locally and personally.  It requires that we accept that we are all in this together and we must all do our part.

Because this problem works on all these levels, there are reasons to be optimistic.  Because when we add individual actions together, amazing energy savings can be found.  

April 22nd is Earth Day and you might be wondering what should we do?  After all, the problem of global warming is huge and we have an administration that is worse than an ostrich in facing the problem.  Yet, there are so many things we can do, that the question becomes where do we start?

Back in the 1970s during the oil shock that created long lines at gas stations, a man named Arthur Rosenfeld did some calculations and came to a surprising answer.

The role of religion in our politics has been growing steadily and the strongest religious voices have been on the religious right who after decades of shunning politics decided to enter into the fray wholeheartedly in the 1980s.   According to fundamentalist Christian leaders like Pat Robertson the problems in the United States are the fault of the mainstream culture. In the minds of many fundamentalists, 9/11 happened because Americans have been too tolerant and too accepting of abortion and homosexuality.   They want to stamp out the culture that they see is so dangerous and compel Americans to follow their scripture or to be condemned.

Ironically, one of their biggest fights with the American mainstream society is how difficult it has been to keep their children in the fundamentalist camp when they grow up.

PurgeGate has really started to bring out some extremely worrying facts about the state of our legal system.  The Justice Department under Bush's pet Attorney General has been riddled with partisan and ultra-conservative US Attorneys who have no respect for our constitution.  A classic example of the trouble is one that TPM's David Kurtz posted on today concerning Rachel Paulose who was appointed (and confirmed by the lame-duck Senate in December 2006) the US Attorney for Minnesota.  

First, note that Kyle Sampson's email describing the problem of firing all the US Attorney's and what might be workable was written on January 1, 2006.  Here's what he said again (pdf: page 20, emphasis mine):

Americans are truly outraged about the Walter Reed story, but what message have they taken away this week?  As this segment on NPR says this story is capable of completely derailing the Bush administration.

The reports of shoddy treatment at Walter Reed — long considered a premier medical facility — come as the Bush administration is trying shore up waning support for the war in Iraq. Scott Silliman, a law professor at Duke University and a former Air Force lawyer, says the Walter Reed scandal also has political consequences.