Economic Solutions

April 5, 2010 – 3:32 pm

The world is moving towards a green economy.  The United States is being left behind.  If we do not catch up, the United States will not be able to compete in the world economy.

When I talk to people about global warming, some are still unconvinced of the science.  I’ve stopped trying to argue the science.  If you don’t believe global warming is happening by now, you probably aren’t going to be convinced by one guy quoting scientific evidence.  Rather, I talk about economic realities.

In the 1990s, the American auto industry made a bad bet.  They thought electric and hybrid (ie fuel efficient) cars were a trend–a fad that would do away in a few years.  Instead, the American auto industry made it’s bet on SUVs and light trucks.  This bet payed off in the short run.  Lots of people bought Excursions, Denalis, and Explorers.  We bought Ford F10s, Doge Rams, and Chevrolet Silverados.  Even the Hummer had its run.  We bought them….until we stopped buying them.

While the bet payed off in the short run, the American auto industry went bust when gas prices hit four dollars a gallon.  Rising gas prices combined with environmental concerns made car buyers think about how much gas they would need to purchase and burn.  The current recession didn’t help either…  By 2008, minivans, trucks, and large SUVs saw their sales drop more than 20%.

While Detroit build gas-guzzlers, Japan began investing in making fuel-efficient cars.  Their gamble paid off.  Just as Americans turned away from gas-guzzlers, the Japanese manufacturers gave them a viable fuel-efficient alternative.

America seems destined to repeat the mistakes of our auto industry.  The world is changing around us but we seem committed to the ways of the past.  Like Detroit, America and our corporations will continue to earn big profits for a decade and maybe two.  But, the renewable economy is coming.  Our competitors in Asia and Europe are investing in innovation and infrastructure.  We are not.

Ironically, the cornerstone of our capitalist system is that firms that are unable to adapt and compete in changing markets will not survive.  Right now, we are painting ourselves into a corner.  We want to make the short money, without worrying about what will make our profitable for decades to come.  Europe and Asia are taking the long term approach.  If we do nothing to change our course of action, the state of our auto industry is a clear example of where we will end up.

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Campaign Contributions

April 1, 2010 – 3:38 pm

When people wonder why there is such a “controversy” over global warming science, it pays to follow the money.  The coal, oil, and transportation industries stand to lose billions of dollars if the United States gets serious.  Of course, these billions of dollars won’t be lost from the U.S. economy.  Rather, companies and industries that can provide lower emissions fuels and products will start earning these profits.

Carbon intensive industries are scared.  They won’t give up their profits without a fight.  So, they’ve helped create a
“controversy.”  To do this, they’ve enlisted the help of Republican Congressmen.

The following chart shows campain contributions made by carbon intensive industries since 1990:

Industry Contribution       to Democrats              to Republicans          % to Dems      % to Repubs.
Auto Manufacturers                $35,582,670                  $104,358,369             25%             74%
Coal Mining                             $4,731,283                    $17,941,812              21%             79%
Electric Utilities                      $55,054,143                    $83,513,394             40%             60%
Oil & Gas                               $60,659,784                  $185,578,206             24%             75%
Railroads                               $16,187,969                    $33,587,344             33%             67%
Trucking                                $10,423,163                    $31,121,187             25%             75%
Total                                    $182,639,012                  $466,023,312             28%             72%

The numbers really speak for themselves.

The next time you hear a Republican Congressman railing about the inconsistencies in science, ask yourself how much money he (or she) would stand to lose if they accepted what 90% of scientists believe: that global warming is happening now.

The poor and powerless of the world are the ones who will be hurt by the effects of global warming.  We are willing to let that happen because there’s more profit for some in doing nothing.  This is the sad state of American business and American politics.

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Leaping Another Hurdle

March 29, 2010 – 11:50 pm

For the past two weeks, I’ve been drafting a book proposal and a two sample chapters for a book I’m writing: Jesus Wants US to Stop Global Warming.  The book expands upon many of the ideas I discuss on this blog.

My goal was to send out a package an agent or publisher would immediately recognize was both financially viable and socially redeeming.  I’m confidant I’ve achieved both in spades.  While most agents and publishers will reject the book out of hand, I have faith someone will see the potential.  It only takes one…

A couple paragraphs from the query letter:

“Jesus Wants US to Stop Global Warming discusses climate issues through the lens of values and issues important to Christian Americans: increased U.S. national security, personal and national financial prosperity, America’s continued supremacy as a global superpower, and, of course, the teachings of Jesus Christ.  Interesting historical vignettes bring global warming to life; among other topics discussed are the Battle for Mogadishu, NASA’s Apollo project, the creationism/evolution controversy, and U.S involvement in the Second World War.

While most environmental books preach to the choir, Jesus Wants US to Stop Global Warming seeks to convert nonbelievers.  Assuming no prior knowledge of global warming, the book is written for a wide Christian audience—an audience becoming increasingly interested in climate issues.  Jesus Wants US to Stop Global Warming differentiates itself from other Christian environmental books by confronting, examining, and casting aside the half-baked arguments of climate skeptics.  Indicting these skeptics as misinformed, self-serving, un-Christian, and un-American, the book demands response and invites controversy.”

I spent a good portion of the day sending the book proposal and sample chapters to agents and publishers.  Now, it’s a waiting game and I’m fine with that.  While I wait to hear back, there’s much to do.

After two weeks away, I’m excited to be active on this website again.  My vision for the website is nowhere near complete.  I’m looking to make some upgrades, continue cultivating contacts, and writing about the climate issue.  I’ll continue to write and research the book, but at a pace far reduced from the last couple of weeks.  And, I’m excited to begin another writing project that has nothing at all to do with climate change.

But tonight, I will sleep the sleep of the righteous….

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Easy Target: The Oregon Petition

March 16, 2010 – 3:43 pm

I read a lot of books written by climate deniers. It’s useful to understand their arguments, half-truths, and lies. In one such book, there was a claim that 30,000 scientists had signed a petition claiming global warming wasn’t really happening. So, I went to the footnotes and checked the source. I found the Oregon Petition Project.

The Oregon Petition Project might be the most ridiculous organized challenge to global warming science I have ever witnessed. The website asks that signatories of the petition to self-identify themselves as being a scientist, and then sign the petition. So, anyone can sign the petition as long as they check the box claiming that they are a scientist. Better yet, you can give yourself a Ph.D if you’d like. Or say you are a climatologist.

The Oregon Petition website claims: “31,486 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with PhDs.” Among the signatories are: Perry Mason (TV detective), John Grisham (author of The Firm and The Client), and, my personal favorite, Dr. Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice, Ph.D).

In 2001, Scientific American wrote:

Many conservatives regard the “scientific consensus” about global warming as a media concoction. After all, didn’t 17,100 skeptical scientists sign a petition circulated in 1998 by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine?

Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition—one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers—a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.

For nearly 13 years, the Oregon Petition has collected unverified signatures. This would all be a big joke, except climate deniers use the Oregon Project as source material. When a book claims that 30,000 scientists have signed a petition, it sounds like legitimate proof. Like most of the deniers’ claims, other deniers will believe them without further inspection. As with the rest of global warming, the devil is in the details—or in this case, the footnotes.

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Air Pollution Costs CA $193 Million

March 12, 2010 – 2:07 pm

Global warming solutions make sense for reasons far beyond the effects of global warming. For over a year, the nation has been debating heath care reform.  Global warming solutions are almost never included in the health care debate, but they should be.   Implementing global warming solutions will lower health care costs and put money back in Americans’ pockets.

Here’s the logic: Asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, and pulmonary disease have all been linked to air pollution.  Each year, Americans treated for those diseases translate to hundreds of millions of dollars in health care costs.  Switching to renewable fuels (a global warming solution) will reduce all sorts of toxic air pollution, not just greenhouse gasses.  Reduced air pollution means that fewer people will be stricken by asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, and pulmonary disease.  This translates to lower health care costs and lower insurance premiums.   This is to say nothing of the fact the individuals stricken by these ailments will not be made to suffer.

A three-year study released by the RAND corporation found that: “California’s dirty air caused more than $193 million in hospital-based medical care from 2005 to 2007 as people sought help for problems such as asthma and pneumonia that are triggered by elevated pollution levels.”

During those three years, the most common medical emergency was asthma triggered by elevated air pollution.  Children below the age of 18 visited California emergency rooms 17,000 times with cases of asthma.  But, those 17,000 cases of asthma were not the most costly or life threatening ailments.  Acute bronchitis, pneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease accounted for nearly one-third of the $193 million spent.

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Sen. Graham has the Right Idea

March 1, 2010 – 7:22 pm

It’s unavoidable: Republicans are currently against the United States taking action against global warming. It’s as simple as that.

No matter what your political ideology, global warming action makes sense for America. Solutions to global warming will create jobs, foster economic growth, increase energy independence, and improve national security. And, the vast majority of younger American’s take the existence of global warming and need for solutions as undeniable fact. Republicans are increasingly seen as the party of obstruction.

The Republicans are causing themselves a public relations nightmare that will unfold over the next 20 years. Because of its fifty-year history of opposition to equal rights and immigration, the Republican Party is shunned by minorities just as America’s minority populations explode. The same will be true for global warming. Eventually, America will become actively involved in real global warming solutions. The longer that takes, the worse the political fallout will be for the Republican party.

Not all Republicans are against global warming solutions. One reason Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is so popular in California that he has bucked his party and taken a stance against global warming. “We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late. The science is clear. The global warming debate is over.”

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) has also gotten on board: “I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate. It’s a value. These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment — and the world will be better off for it. They are not brainwashed. … From a Republican point of view, we should buy into it and embrace it and not belittle them. You can have a genuine debate about the science of climate change, but when you say that those who believe it are buying a hoax and are wacky people you are putting at risk your party’s future with younger people.” (As quoted in a New York Times Op-Ed piece by Thomas Friedman)

“Drill, baby drill” makes a nice chant, but most Americans weren’t fooled into believing it was sound energy policy. Still, the Republican Party seems all too ready to double down on a losing energy strategy in the next election cycle. There is no doubt the Republicans would pick up needed independent votes if they—like Sen. Graham—began framing global warming solutions in terms of investment in innovation, job creation, energy independence, and national security. They will change their tune eventually, I just wonder how much damage they will do–to themselves and the world–before they change it.

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Welcome Facebook Friends…

February 25, 2010 – 10:00 am

Friends,

As you can see, I’ve started my own website and blog. As the name hopefully implies, JesusConserves.org explores global warming from a Christian perspective. Please take a moment and take a look around.  

Part of the reason I began this site is to promote a book I’ve been writing.  Like JesusConserves.org, the book explores how Christians are integral to global warming solutions.   After working on this project in my spare time for a couple of years, I’m (finally) beginning to look for a publisher.  My chances of securing a publisher will increase greatly if I can demonstrate an interest in the topic and cultivate an audience.  That’s where you can help.

Please help me publicize JesusConserves.org.  Most of us know many Christians, many environmentalists, and, dare I say, even a few Christian environmentalists.  Please share the site with them.  More importantly, please share this site with people who do not believe global warming is real or think global warming won’t affect them—these are exactly the people JesusConserves.org needs to reach.

Here are a few things you can do to get the message out:

•    Email a link to JesusConserves.org to Christians you know.
•    Email a link to JesusConserves.org to anyone interested in global warming.
•    Email a link to JesusConserves.org to global warming skeptics.
•    Join the Jesus Conserves Facebook group and fan page.
•    Invite friends to join the Jesus Conserves Facebook group and fan page.
•    Follow Jesus Conserves on Twitter.

Thank you in advance for taking a moment from your day.  With your help, we can make a difference.

Thanks and God bless,
Tim Mahon
JesusConserves@gmail.com

P.S. Special thanks to my web designer Jamie Kleiman. If you need any web design work done, you can always find a link to her site on the bottom banner of this page and right here: www.jakledesigns.com

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The UN fires back at Skeptics

February 24, 2010 – 1:46 pm

The global warming “debate” is heating up once again…

In the last few months, the 2007 report by United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has come under attack. In a nutshell, the IPCC report found that global warming is real, caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, and will have disastrous effects around the world if nothing is done. “For the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), 450 scientists from 130 countries served as Lead Authors. Another 800 served as contributing authors. More than 2500 experts provided over 90,000 review comments.”

Climate skeptics argue that because of a few mistakes, the findings of the IPCC are defective and should be thrown out. U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) claimed that the IPPC’s mistakes mean that, “there’s no objective basis” for the finding that humans are causing global warming.

To be clear, there are mistakes in the IPCC’s report. The IPCC does not conduct their own scientific studies but relies on the body of scientific knowledge available. Out of the thousands of articles and studies they relied on, a handful have been found to have scientific flaws. I imagine the smoking lobby pointing at a handful of university studies with flaws and claiming, “You see? We don’t know that smoking causes cancer. The flaws in these studies invalidate all the findings of the Surgeon General. In the interest of ’sound science,’ we should start the scientific process over from scratch. It should only take another couple decades of study.”

When is it time to move from demands of proof to faith in what we know? The time is now.

As reported by in Yale Environment 360: “UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Lisa P. Jackson, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have reasserted that the science behind global warming is incontrovertible and that government officials should reject attempts to derail climate change initiatives because of errors in reports by the UN’s panel on global warming.”  This is a good start.  The science behind global warming is incontrovertible.  It is time to move forward. 

For committed climate skeptics, there will never be enough proof. The IPCC is working on another report to be published in 2013 or 2014. When it is released, the skeptics will claim it is rubbish based on junk science. The skeptics will point out the window and say, “It’s snowing. See? There is no global warming if it snows.” No amount of proof will be enough for people who have made up their minds to not believe. More to the point, no amount of proof will be enough for people who have a political and/or financial stake in the non-existence of global warming.

The parallels between atheists and Christians draw themselves. Christians have faith. Atheists demand proof. Christians can never provide enough proof for atheists to believe. All Christians can do is try to show them the light and hope they finlly see it…

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Lent Carbon Fast (Days 1 – 6)

February 22, 2010 – 2:40 pm

The flowing entry describes some of the steps I’m taking to participate in the Carbon Fast for Lent.

1. Coffee Mug at Work.

I’d been meaning to bring a ceramic coffee mug to work for a while. I usually drink my morning coffee out of a large travel mug. A couple days a week, I either drink my coffee at home or skip it.  Then I don’t bring my travel mug to work.  And sometimes I want a cup of coffee at work.  My travel mug doesn’t fit into the little coffee machine at work so I had to use the little paper cups.  No more.  I finally got it together and brought a trusty ceramic mug to work.  Sometimes it’s the little things…

2. No Taxis.

Living in New York City, I normally walk or take the subway just about anywhere I go. The one major exception is when I’m in a rush. It is easy to jump in a cab and get to where you need to be in only a few minutes. The only problems are that cabs are extremely expensive and extremely inefficient.

On Sunday, I was waiting and waiting on a subway platform. I was late to my friends’ house. I wanted to take the easy way—the quick way—and take a taxi instead of waiting. I resisted the temptation and waited another 15 minutes for the train. It was hard, but it was the right thing to do.

3. Go Paperless.

While I was paying my bills on-line this week, I realized I hadn’t signed up for the “paperless” option on all my bills. Many of us pay out bills online. But we still get mailed bills. I’ve been receiving bills, checking them for a moment, and throwing them out for longer than I can remember. This is a waste of paper and energy.

I signed up for paperless billing for all my bills. This is so much better on so many levels. My statements are sent to my email and I pay online. Now I don’t have to come home and find a stack of bills on the kitchen table.

4. Walking to Work.

Friday was as nice if a day as I’ve seen in a while. So, I walked to work. This was no real sacrifice. I just know if everyone walked a little more, the subway system could send fewer trains and save some energy. But, really I just wanted to walk in the warm weather.

5. No Beef.

Beef cattle produce an alarming amount of methane each year. The United States has about 100 million cattle, responsible for about 18% of our greenhouse gasses. Worse yet, these 100 million cows burp up a great deal of methane (our largest source). Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, warming the atmosphere 20 to 50 times more.

While I will (and have) eaten some other meats, I will not eat beef during Lent.

6. Turned Down the Heat.

My apartment has been to hot. Rather than opening a window, I simply turned down the heat. I have a steam radiator so turning down the heat really means turning off the heat. That’s fine. One radiator is off, one is still on. The apartment is still warm but now uses half the heat.

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Lent and the Carbon Fast

February 18, 2010 – 6:00 pm

I’ve been thinking about Lent and why people “give things up for Lent.”

Immediately before beginning his ministry, Jesus wandered in the desert.  For forty days and nights, He fasted.  In the desert, He endured and resisted repeated temptation by the devil.  First, the devil tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread.  Next, the devil tempted Jesus to jump off a pinnacle and be caught by angels.  Finally, the devil offered Jesus to rule over all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would worship the devil.  Of course, Jesus resisted each of the devil’s temptations.

Christians prepare for the coming of Easter during the forty days of Lent. Traditionally, it is a time of prayer, reflection, and abstinence.  These forty days are also meant to represent the forty days Jesus spent in the desert, enduring temptation by Satan.  Hence, we Christians endure temptation—as Jesus did—by “giving something up for Lent.” 

What I’ve been thinking about in the past few days is why people choose to give up certain things.  Many people give up chocolate, dessert, meat, carbs, sacks between meals, cigarettes, TV, video games, or alcohol.  While each of these is a worthwhile thing to give up, it strikes me that the person giving them up is the sole beneficiary of giving them up.  If I give up sweets, I’ll lose weight.  If I give up TV or video games, I’ll have more time to do things.  If I give up smoking, I’ll breathe easier.

As we all do, I get involved in my own life and sometimes forget about others.  Instead of giving something up for Lent that will only benefit my own health (dessert or meat), I want to make an effort to help others.  For Lent, I will take special attention to lower my carbon footprint and, thereby, help those who are affected by climate change. 

Like many, I think about global warming—er, global weirding—and try to be part of the solution.  But, I often forget about it.  Or my efforts are limited to what is convenient for me at that moment.  For the forty days of Lent, I’ll make some hard choices to use less energy—to make a sacrifice for the benefit of people I can’t even see and will never meet.  I’ll use this blog to document my progress.

I’m not the only one with this idea.  Carbon Fast 2010 is a movement that asks Christians to “fast from carbon, pray and cry out for climate justice.”  Additionally, The Daily Green has an article entitled, “9 Things You Can Give Up for Lent That Will Help the Environment.” 

While I won’t be perfect, I’m really going to try to do better in the next [39] days.

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