A rising tide will lift my yacht.
Charles Koch is not a scientist, but he has a mountain of money and a controlling share in the Republican Party so
to hell with the scientists.
For the record, Koch says this of climate change: "You can plausibly say that CO2 has contributed" to the planet's warming, but he sees "no evidence" to support "this theory that it's going to be catastrophic."
Meanwhile,
in science.
[W]e expect the water column thickness over the trough to increase by several meters per year to maintain hydrostatic equilibrium if thinning trends continue[1,2]. This could allow additional exchange between the TGIS and the ocean, accelerate ice-shelf thinning, and allow grounded ice to accelerate towards the coast. The availability of MCDW and recent accelerated mass loss support the idea that the behavior of Totten Glacier is an East Antarctic analogue to ocean-driven retreat underway in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The global see level potential of 3.5 m flowing through Totten Glacier alone is of similar magnitude to the entire probable contribution of the [West Antarctic Ice Sheet] (ref 29).
That is the newest analysis of the rapid thinning of just one melting Antarctic glacier—albeit a very, very big one. I suppose a potential sea level rise of 3.5 meters from one glacier alone is only "catastrophic" if you live anywhere on the planet where that might present a problem. Charles Koch, fortunately, does not, and one presumes he will be spending his planned extraordinary sums of campaign money on whichever of his preferred candidates can most credibly pledge that they do not see it as a problem either.
Jessica Torres:
It is becoming clear that journalists need to do a better job of pinning down the views of climate change deniers, particularly those with presidential aspirations. Press Think's Jay Rosen recently analyzed the different ways journalists choose to handle candidates who are climate changer deniers, and criticized The Washington Post for "normalizing" GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) climate denial. Rosen also cited The New York Times' environmental editor Adam Bryant, who stated: "[C]laims that the entire field of climate science is some kind of giant hoax do not hold water, and we have made a conscious decision that we are not going to take that point of view seriously."
As David Roberts put it, "to reject mainstream government, academia, science, and media is to reject mainstream thought entirely."
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2012—Rush Limbaugh censorship efforts attracts EFF attention:
As noted yesterday, the Rush Limbaugh Show is attempting to silence criticism of his treatment of Sandra Fluke by getting our video compilation of it pulled from YouTube. We re-uploaded the video to Vimeo (the embed above), and can obviously keep posting it in multiple places if Limbaugh's lawyers persist.
But there is still the question of YouTube—the Google outfit that has erroneously pulled the video. The great folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the nation's staunchest defenders of online freedoms, have taken notice.
While initiating frivolous legal processes to intimidate and silence critics is hardly new, Limbaugh actually seems to be taking a specific page out of the playbook of Michael Savage, his on-again/off-again compatriot and fellow conservative talk radio fixture. In 2007, Savage turned to copyright law in an ultimately futile attempt to silence the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) who did precisely what the Daily Kos has done here: post online a minutes-long montage of outrageous statements made by a radio host in order to criticize the host's behavior and expose it for a public audience. In Savage's case, he unsuccessfully sued CAIR for copyright infringement ... Limbaugh has (for now) chosen the more expeditious DMCA takedown route. Just as with Savage's ridiculous attempt to keep his own words from being used against him failed, though, so will Limbaugh's. |
EFF runs our Rush Limbaugh video through a Fair Use legal analysis, and like I said yesterday, it's not even close. It's about as clear a Fair Use situation as you can get. It's so cut and dry, actually, that there should be no reason for Google to play along with Limbaugh's censorship efforts.
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On today's Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin noted the return of the "Clinton Rules," now with added Benghazi! Gop "fresh faces" sound like old faces. Rosalyn MacGregor on MI's Prop 1. Lynch votes, explained. Can hipsters make unions & biz governance retro cool?
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