Consumption The Root Cause of Climate Change

Consumption The Root Cause of Climate Change by Merrick Godhaven
Technology is part of the solution to climate change. But only part. Techno-fixes like some of those in the Guardian's Manchester Reportdrastic reductions in our consumption. That means radical economic and social transformation. Merely swapping technologies fails to address the root causes of climate change. simply cannot deliver the carbon cuts science demands of us without being accompanied by

We need to choose the solutions that are the cheapest, the swiftest, the most effective and least likely to incur dire side effects. On all counts, there's a simple answer – stop burning the stuff in the first place. Consume less.

There is a certain level of resources we need to survive, and beyond that there is a level we need in order to have lives that are comfortable and meaningful. It is far below what we presently consume. Americans consume twice as much oil as Europeans. Are they twice as happy? Are Europeans half as free?

Economic growth itself is not a measure of human well-being, it only measures things with an assessed monetary value. It values wants at the same level as needs and, while it purports to bring prosperity to the masses, its tendency to concentrate profit in fewer and fewer hands leaves billions without the necessities of a decent life.

Techno-fixation masks the incompatibility of solving climate change with unlimited economic growth. Even if energy consumption can be reduced for an activity, ongoing economic growth eats up the improvement and overall energy consumption still rises. We continue destructive consumption in the expectation that new miracle technologies will come and save us.

The hope of a future techno-fix feeds into the pass-it-forward, do-nothing-now culture typified by targets for 2050. Tough targets for 2050 are not tough at all, they are a decoy. Where are the techno-fix plans for the peak in global emissions by 2015 that the IPCC says we need?

Even within the limited sphere of technology, we have to separate the solutions from the primacy of profit. We need to choose what's the most effective, not the most lucrative. Investors will want the maximum return for their money, and so the benefits of any climate technologies will, in all likelihood, be sold as carbon credits to the polluter industries and nations. It would not be done in tandem with emissions cuts but instead of them, making it not a tool of mitigation but of exacerbation.

Climate change is not the only crisis currently facing humanity. Peak oil is likely to become a major issue within the coming decade. Competition for land and water, soil fertility depletion and collapse of fisheries are already posing increasing problems for food supply and survival in many parts of the world.

Technological solutions to climate change fail to address most of these issues. Yet even without climate change, this systemic environmental and social crisis threatens society, and requires deeper solutions than new technology alone can provide. Around a fifth of emissions come from deforestation, more than for all transport emissions combined. There is no technological fix for that. We simply need to consume less of the forest, that is to say, less meat, less agrofuel and less wood.

Our level of consumption is inequitable. Making it universal is simply impossible. The scientist Jared Diamond calculates that if the whole world were to have our level of consumption, it would be the equivalent of having 72 billion people on earth.

With ravenous economic growth still prized as the main objective of society by all political leaders the world over, that 72 billion would be just the beginning. At 3% annual growth, 25 years later it would be the equivalent of 150 billion people. A century later it would be over a trillion. Something's got to give. And indeed, it already is. It's time for us to call it a crisis and respond with the proportionate radical action that is needed.

Obama, FDR, and the Politics of Health Care Reform

Obama, FDR, and the Politics of Health Care Reform
"I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."
-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Facing what is likely to be the defining political struggle of his presidency -- the battle for health care reform -- President Obama emphasized in a town-hall meeting earlier this month that the "lobbyists and special interests are what is going to end up carrying the day" unless "ordinary Americans... stand up and say, 'Now is the time.'" With the deep-pocketed health care industry reportedly spending $1.4 million a day to oppose any fundamental change, the need for a countervailing popular movement could not be more urgent.

Yet shortly after this eloquent call for public pressure, President Obama then moved to undermine it, telling Congressional leaders that grass roots groups such as the Service Employees International Union, MoveOn, and Democracy for America should stop pressuring wavering Senate Democrats to support more robust reform. While continuing to express support for a public plan, President Obama has conspicuously refused to draw a line in the sand on the issue. At the same time, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has repeatedly communicated that the Administration might be willing to support health care legislation that abandons the public option altogether.

Obama's awkward attempt to deflect grassroots pressure could not be more different from the stance taken by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who famously said after his election in 1932 to a group of labor leaders pressing for favorable legislation, "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it." What Roosevelt understood was that demands from below -- even clamorous ones -- were a resource for a president who aspired to be the architect of major social reform.

FDR's steadfastness of purpose and his ability to capitalize on grassroots pressure were nowhere more visible than in the battle over the Social Security Act -- the piece of legislation that, more than any other, defined his domestic legacy. In an eerie echo of the problems Obama is facing today, Roosevelt faced Senate opposition from within his own party . The leader of the opposition was a conservative Democrat from Missouri, Bennett "Champ" Clark, who sponsored an amendment that would have allowed employers to opt out of Social Security. The amendment enjoyed widespread support, passing in the Senate with over half the Democrats voting for it as well as all but three Republicans.

But Roosevelt and his supporters stood firm, recognizing that the Clark amendment would fatally undermine Social Security by narrowing the contribution base, limiting universality, and destroying portability (the ability to carry the pension from job to job). Promising to veto any legislation that included the amendment, the Roosevelt administration -- crucially assisted by its allies in the more liberal House of Representatives -- kept it out of the final legislation, the landmark Social Security Act of 1935. In the words of political scientist Jacob Hacker, a leading expert on the history of public and private social benefits in the United States, "Social Security passed not because Congress wanted it but because Roosevelt demanded it."

By unwaveringly insisting on a vigorous public plan and promising to veto any legislation that does not include it, President Obama could play a role similar to that of President Roosevelt in protecting the integrity of the Social Security Act. Certainly, the President is an able and articulate defender of a public plan. In a powerful critique of the logic of those who claim that a public option would drive private insurance out of business, he has pointedly asked: "If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical." And, as he rightly notes, a public plan can keep down administrative costs, provide more options, and -- most critically -- force the insurance companies to compete.

It is precisely because a public plan is likely to bring down costs that private insurance companies oppose it so vehemently. Their fierce opposition unquestionably poses a formidable political problem for the President. But this is a battle that can be won, especially if a substantial number of members of the House of Representatives, emboldened by grass-roots pressure, make clear they will simply not vote for any legislation that lacks a robust public plan.

With opinion polls showing wide popular support for a public option, this is the time for President Obama to set aside his deep-seated instinct for compromise and to show the kind of steely resolve President Roosevelt displayed in defeating the Clark amendment. Obama's ability to rise to this challenge will do much to determine not only the fate of health care reform, but also whether he will join the ranks of that handful of presidents who have increased the security of the American people against what FDR memorably called the "hazards and vicissitudes of life."

Who's Responsible for the Economic Crisis

Who's Responsible for the Economic Crisis
There are two basic truths about the enormous deficits that the federal government will run in the coming years.

The first is that President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying. The second is that Mr. Obama does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit, despite what his advisers have suggested.

The New York Times analyzed Congressional Budget Office reports going back almost a decade, with the aim of understanding how the federal government came to be far deeper in debt than it has been since the years just after World War II. This debt will constrain the country’s choices for years and could end up doing serious economic damage if foreign lenders become unwilling to finance it.

Mr. Obama — responding to recent signs of skittishness among those lenders — met with 40 members of Congress at the White House on Tuesday and called for the re-enactment of pay-as-you-go rules, requiring Congress to pay for any new programs it passes.

The story of today’s deficits starts in January 2001, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. The Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.

You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

The first category — the business cycle — accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing. It’s a reflection of the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists’ assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years.

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.

How can that be? Some of his proposals, like a plan to put a price on carbon emissions, don’t cost the government any money. Others would be partly offset by proposed tax increases on the affluent and spending cuts. Congressional and White House aides agree that no large new programs, like an expansion of health insurance, are likely to pass unless they are paid for.

Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of a widely cited study on the dangers of the current deficits, describes the situation like so: “Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years. On the one hand, it might seem unfair for people to blame Obama for not fixing it.

Hannity distorts article to smear administration on stimulus money distribution

Hannity distorts article to smear administration on stimulus money distribution
Fox News' Sean Hannity and CNN's Kiran Chetry cited a USA Today article to claim or speculate that political favoritism played a role in the distribution of funds from the recovery act. However, the article itself stated, "Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work."


On the July 9 editions of Fox News' Hannity and CNN's American Morning, both Sean Hannity and Kiran Chetry cited a USA Today article headlined, "Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in '08," to claim or speculate that political favoritism played a role in the distribution of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. However, the USA Today article itself stated, "Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work." USA Today also reported that "[t]he imbalance didn't start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, the counties that later voted for Obama collected about 50% more government aid than those that supported McCain, according to spending reports from the U.S. Census Bureau."

After Hannity read from the USA Today article, he asked, "So is this a mere coincidence, or is there something more sinister at work?" Fox News anchor and analyst Kimberly Guilfoyle later stated, "[W]e're not born yesterday. Of course it's going to go to the blue states. It's called, like, you know, you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. It's very simple." Conservative commentator S.E. Cupp later added, "I think the message is completely clear. If you want more of the taxpayers' money, vote Democratic. If you want a chance to actually earn your own, well you'll have to vote Republican," to which Hannity responded, "Yeah. And so he's punishing those areas that voted for McCain."

On American Morning, Chetry teased a segment by stating, "Where are your tax dollars actually going? A new report just breaking this morning says it may depend on how your county voted." She later noted that "the report also says that that imbalance didn't just start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, counties that later voted for Obama collecting about 50 percent more government aid anyway, according to spending reports from the Census Bureau."

From the July 9 USA Today article:

The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.

Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work. The imbalance is so pronounced -- and the aid so far from complete -- that it would be almost inconceivable for it to be the result of political tinkering, says Adam Hughes, the director of federal fiscal policy for the non-profit OMB Watch. "Even if they wanted to, I don't think the administration has enough people in place yet to actually do that," he says.

Jobs Are More Important Then Formulas

The Human Equation - by Bob Herbert
Vice President Joe Biden told us this week that the Obama administration "misread how bad the economy was" in the immediate aftermath of the inauguration.

Puh-leeze. Mr. Biden and President Obama won the election because the economy was cratering so badly there were fears we might be entering another depression. No one understood that better than the two of them. Mr. Obama tried to clean up the vice president's remarks by saying his team hadn't misread what was happening, but rather "we had incomplete information."

That doesn't hold water, either. The president has got the second coming of the best and the brightest working for him down there in Washington (think of Larry Summers as the latter-day Robert McNamara), and they're crunching numbers every which way they can. They've got more than enough data. They understand the theories and the formulas as well as anyone. But they're not coming up with the right answers because they're missing the same thing that McNamara and his fellow technocrats were missing back in the 1960s: the human equation.

The crisis staring America in its face and threatening to bring it to its knees is unemployment. Joblessness. Why it is taking so long - seemingly forever - for our government officials to recognize the scope of this crisis and confront it directly is beyond me.

There are now five unemployed workers for every job opening in the U.S. The official unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, but that doesn't begin to tell the true story of the economic suffering. The roof is caving in on struggling American families that have already seen the value of their homes and retirement accounts put to the torch.

At the present rate, upwards of seven million homes can be expected to fall into foreclosure this year and next. Welfare rolls are rising, according to a survey by The Wall Street Journal. The National Employment Law Project has pointed out that hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers will begin losing their jobless benefits, just about the only thing keeping them above water, by the end of the summer.

Virtually all of the job growth since the start of the 21st century (which was nothing to crow about) has vanished. If you include the men and women who are now working part time but would like to work full time, and those who have become so discouraged that they've stopped actively searching for work, you'll find that 16.5 percent of Americans are jobless or underemployed. Nearly everyone who is fortunate enough to have a job has a spouse or a parent or an in-law or a close friend who is desperate for employment.

Anyone who believes that the Obama stimulus package will turn this jobs crisis around is deluded. It was too small, too weakened by tax cuts and not nearly focused enough on creating jobs. It's like trying to turn a battleship around with a canoe. Even if it were working perfectly, the stimulus would not come close to stemming the cascade of joblessness unleashed by this megarecession.

I'd like to see the president go on television and, in a dramatic demonstration of real leadership, announce a plan geared toward increasing employment that is both big and visionary - something on the scale of the Manhattan Project, or the interstate highway program or the Apollo spaceflight initiative.

My choice would be a "Rebuild America" campaign that would put men and women to work repairing, maintaining, designing and rebuilding the nation's infrastructure in the broadest sense - everything from roads and schools and the electrical power grid to innovative environmental initiatives and a sparkling new mass transportation network, including high-speed rail systems.

One of the ways of financing such an effort would be through the creation of a national infrastructure bank, which would provide federal investment capital for approved projects and use that money to leverage additional private investment.

There was a time when Americans could think on such a scale and get it done. We used to be better than any other nation on the planet at getting things done. It would be tragic if the 21st century turns out to be the time when that extraordinary can-do spirit disappears and we're left with nothing more meaningful and exciting than lusting after tax cuts and trying to pay off credit card debt.

The joblessness the nation is experiencing is crushing any hope of a real economic recovery. With so many Americans maxed out on their credit cards and with the value of their homes deep in the tank, the only money available to spend in most cases is from paychecks. The best and the brightest in Washington may have a theory about how to get the economy booming without dealing with the employment crisis, but I'd like to see that theory work in the real world.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

CIA We Lied to Congress

CIA We Lied to Congress
by John Nichols

In May, at a point when congressional Republicans and their amen corner in the media were attempting to defend the Bush-Cheney administration's torture regime, their primary defense was: Pelosi knew.

The spin held that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, had in 2002 been secretly briefed about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects.

Pelosi said the Central Intelligence Agency had failed to inform her about the character and extent of the harsh interrogations.

Pelosi accused the CIA of "misleading the Congress of the United States."

Republican senators screamed.

"It's outrageous that a member of Congress should call a terror-fighter a liar," howled Missouri Senator Kit Bond, the vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee. "It seems the playbook is, blame terror-fighters. We ought to be supporting them."

CIA officials denied lying to Congress and the American people, and that seemed to be that. "Let me be clear: It is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress," said CIA Director Leon Panetta. That is against our laws and values."

But, now, we learn that, in late June, Panetta admitted in secret testimony to Congress that the agency had concealed information and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001.

Some of the details of Panetta's testimony are contained in a letter from seven House Democrats to Panetta that was released Wednesday morning.

In the letter, the members (Anna Eshoo of California, Alcee Hastings of Florida, Rush Holt of New Jersey, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Adam Smith of Washington, Mike Thompson of California and John Tierney of Massachusetts) wrote: "Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all members of Congress, and misled members for a number of years from 2001 to this week."

The letter continued: "In light of your testimony, we ask that you publicly correct your statement of May 15, 2009."

Pelosi's critics are claiming that Panetta's admission does not resolve the debate about whether the speaker was lied to in briefings about harsh interrogations.

What does the CIA say?

That's where things seem to get confusing -- but, as we'll see, not too confusing.

Panetta "stands by his May 15 statement," CIA spokesman George Little claimed after the letter from the House members was released.

The problem is that Little also said: "This agency and this director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta's actions back that up. As the letter from these ... representatives notes, it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees."

So, officially, CIA director Panetta stands by his statement that: "It is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress."

But...

Panetta's spokesman is seemingly rather proud that "it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees" that the agency had in the words of the House members "misled members for a number of years from 2001."

Can we reconcile these statements?

Yes.

Panetta, who has only headed the CIA since February of this year says that "it is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress."

But he tells Congress that it was in fact the consistent practice of the CIA to lie to Congress during the Bush-Cheney years.

Why Can't Hannity Criticize Obama Without Lying

Why Can't Hannity Criticize Obama Without Lying
Media Matters caught Sean Hannity doing it again. They write:

On the July 7 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity deceptively cropped President Obama's answer to a question from Fox News senior White House correspondent Major Garrett about the Cold War to suggest that Obama did not acknowledge the actions of past U.S. presidents in freeing Eastern Europe. In fact, as part of his answer, Obama stated, "I'm very proud of the traditions of Democratic and Republican presidents to lift the Iron Curtain," a comment Hannity edited out of the clip he aired of Obama's response... Media Matters for America has documented a pattern by Hannity and other Fox News personalities of cropping Obama's comments abroad to misrepresent their meaning.

If Obama's the radical socialist Hannity likes to paint him as, you'd think he could find ample ammunition without resorting to misrepresenting and distorting the facts. Don't hold your breath for a retraction. * report via Newshounds