N Y Times Slams Koch Brothers

In 2006, in a bipartisan vote unheard of today, the California Legislature passed AB 32, a "landmark clean energy bill that many hoped would serve as a template for a national effort to reduce dependence on foreign oil and mitigate the threat of climate change."



Striking terror in their moneyed hearts, a "well-financed coalition of right-wing ideologues, out-of-state oil and gas companies and climate-change skeptics is seeking to effectively kill that law." They are contributing big bucks to ensure the passage of Prop 23 which would kill AB 32 and California's dreams for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses by 80 percent by the middle of the century.

Among the contributors to the $8.2 million Prop 23 lobbying effort are Charles and David Koch, who have forked over the obscene amount of $1 million, and two Texas based oil giants, Tesoro and Valcero. The Koch brothers are worried, "partly about damage to the bottom line at Koch Industries, and also because they believe that climate change is a left-wing hoax."

They have argued that the law will lead to higher energy costs and job losses, arguments that resonate with many voters in a state with a 12.4 percent unemployment rate. But this overlooks the enormous increase in investments in clean energy technologies — and the jobs associated with them — since the law was passed.

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The Kochs and their allies are disastrously wrong about the science, which shows that man-made emissions are largely responsible for global warming, and wrong about the economics. AB 32’s many friends — led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California — have therefore mounted a spirited counterattack in defense of the law.

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Who wins if this law is repudiated? The Koch brothers, maybe, but the biggest winners will be the Chinese, who are already moving briskly ahead in the clean technology race. And the losers? The people of California, surely. But the biggest loser will be the planet. (emphasis mine)

The American people who fear big government should be far more afraid of these giant oil industries and mega corporations. They do not care one stitch for the welfare of the United States or for the American citizens or, for that matter, the planet. Their only loyalty is to unlimited amounts of green but not the kind you find in clean energy.

Koch Industries, Inc.: "A Kansas-based conglomerate that operates oil refineries in several states and is the company behind brands including Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Lycra fibers and Stainmaster carpet. Forbes ranks Koch Industries as the second-largest privately held company in the U.S. — and the Koch brothers themselves? They're worth billions." (NPR)

The following information is provided by Hoovers.

Valero Energy Corporation: Named after the Alamo (the Mission San Antonio de Valero), the company is the largest independent oil refiner in the US. Valero refines low-cost residual oil and heavy crude into cleaner-burning, higher-margin products, including low-sulfur diesels. Ranks # 26 by Fortune 500. 2009 Sales (Mil): $68,144.0

Tesoro Corporations: Produces gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, fuel oil, liquid asphalt, and other fuel products. Ranks # 139 by Fortune 500. 2009 Sales (mil) : $16,872.0

ENERGY, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE INDIGNANT DESERT BIRDS OF WILLFUL SELF-DESTRUCTION

(This article originally appeared on Blog Action Day, October 15, 2009, as part of a global initiative to promote climate change awareness. Of the 33,000 articles posted – which included submissions by PM Gordon Brown of the UK, the PM of Spain, The White House, The Economist, and Greenpeace, as examples – this article was named ‘best’ by the event sponsors. Although news of the Gulf oil spill has dominated prime time, let us not forget the larger issue of clean and sustainable energy.)

The enemy of realism is hubris.

- Reinhold Niebuhr -

It takes a special humility to understand our place in the natural world. Yet our mythology places us on a pedestal and speaks of human beings as having dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over cattle and every creature that creeps upon the earth, even over earth itself.

In our American history texts, we read of Manifest Destiny and the relentless expansion from sea to shining sea in search of territory, resources, and prosperity ... where our sense of freedom is predicated on abundance.

Notions of freedom and abundance turned the gears of the Industrial Revolution, which relied upon the labor of immigrants who arrived in waves to partake of the American Dream.  For them, dreams of freedom and abundance outweighed all deprivations including bigotry by race, religion, ethnicity, and class.

World War II turned America into an economic superpower. After the war, America possessed almost two-thirds of the world's gold reserves, more than half of the world’s manufacturing capacity, and exported two-thirds of the world’s goods. The relationship between freedom and abundance was no longer the privilege of the few but had become the birthright of the many.

It is ironic to note how rapidly fortunes change ... and how the sudden scarcity of a once abundant resource leads to economic decline.  By 1970, as the demand for oil outpaced domestic production, America turned into a net importer and, within a generation, the largest creditor nation in the world turned into the largest debtor nation.  Today, our nation has 5% of the world's population yet consumes 25% of the world's oil and emits 40% of the world's pollutants.  With proven petroleum reserves of 21,317 million barrels, the Unites States has a 3 to 5 year supply beyond which our nation will be totally dependant on imports (source).

Of course, there are critics, pundits, and politicians who rally around the flag with chants of 'drill, baby, drill!'  Drill off the coasts, they say.  Drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. More opinionated than informed, what they do not know is that ANWR contains less than a year's supply of oil at current consumption rates … and production is more than a decade away.  There are others who want to strip mine the Bekken oil sands of North Dakota and the oil shale slopes of our Rocky Mountain States. At least 30 or more years of oil, they claim, but what they do not know is that less than 3% is recoverable … resulting in colossal environmental damage for negligible gain.

Grow our way out of the energy crisis, still others say. Distill ethanol from corn and switchgrass; but what these advocates have not considered is the enormous spike in food prices as agricultural land is diverted from food to energy production ... and the BTU deficit that requires far more energy to be invested than can be taken out. Furthermore, a 70% increase in food production will be needed just to keep pace with projected worldwide population growth. Ethanol offers no solution beyond a good stiff drink.

Even our friends at Google have joined the ranks of Internet punditry with this expression:


What it means is 'renewable energy for less than the cost of coal.'  It is a statement about energy economics but little else. It tells us that any hypothetical alternative energy source must compete with coal - the cheapest commodity available - to be economically viable.  It says nothing about why non-combustible sources (such as nuclear, solar, wind, and geo-thermal) must be considered within the context of global climate change.


We cannot separate the energy crisis from the climate change crisis. In economic and environmental terms, these are two sides of the same coin. From the Industrial Revolution to the present, energy consumption has lead to a substantial rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Levels of carbon dioxide, which account for 62% of all greenhouses gases, have nearly doubled since 1750.  Methane, which accounts for 20% all greenhouse gases, has risen 155% during the same period. Most disturbing of all, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts a 52% rise in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 - a mere 20 years away (source).

We approach global climate change as just another problem to be solved with good old American ingenuity. We cite the Manhattan project, the national highway system, and the space race as shining examples of past glory. However, global climate change is more than merely a technical or structural problem. It has deep historical and cultural roots and a system of unspoken values instilled from the beginning of civilization and passed from generation to generation.


“America is addicted to oil,” declared former President George Bush in his State of the Union address on January 31, 2006. Was the President signaling a dramatic shift in American energy policy, or were these merely pious words meant for the history books?  Scarcely a day after the speech, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman issued this disclaimer:  Don’t take the President literally.  In other words, there will be no rehab for America's addiction under this president.

The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 was the first of several warning shots.  Almost 40 years later, we are still dithering as if our energy policy paralysis is the sum total of our mythology, our culture, our national heritage, and a cowboy lifestyle that refuses to face reality.  More than these, our energy debate mirrors our healthcare debate:  There are entrenched interests hell-bent on protecting their hordes of filthy lucre.

ExxonMobil gave $1.6 million to the American Enterprise Institute in an attempt to undercut the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a report widely regarded as the most comprehensive review of climate change science. The Bush administration sought to further undermine public awareness by censoring the key findings of climate scientists. Thus, our government, under pressure from the oil lobby, suppressed meaningful data to skew public debate.

Manipulating public opinion is easy when you are the CEO of Big Oil with money and lobbyists and politicians in your pocket. In the weeks and months ahead, Big Oil will be staging Astroturf events to protest new climate change legislation … groups such as Energy Citizens organized by the American Petroleum Institute whose members include Anadarko Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips, among others (source).

Let me digress for a moment to tell another Genesis story. It begins 400 million years ago, between the Devonian and Carboniferous Periods, when the earth was still hot and humid and long before the polar ice regions formed.  As newly evolved forests drew carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and fell where they stood - their carbon buried and sequestered under layers of sedimentary rock - the climate cooled and glaciers formed.

Hundreds of millions of years later, a peculiar Pleistocene creature walked the earth and learned in short order how to dig up and burn those fossil fuels to cook food, warm homes, build cities, drive Hummers, make microchips and Barbie dolls and a myriad of trinkets to delight the fancy ... all far removed from basic survival needs. In less than 25 generations, these peculiar Pleistocene creatures released into the atmosphere as much carbon as earth had sequestered over hundreds of millions of years. This is what is known as the anthropogenic cause of global climate change.



Meanwhile, the National Defense Institute explored the potential impact of global climate change as a threat to national security.  Its conclusion: Vulnerable regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the island nations of the Pacific will face food and water shortages, catastrophic flooding, unprecedented refugee crises, religious conflict, and the spread of contagious diseases. These will demand massive humanitarian aid efforts and/or a military response (source).

There will always be voices in the crowd who keep hearing messages the dead have stopped sending. There will always be voices arguing, not for the common good, but from pure self-interest. Implementing public policy changes are always difficult at best, and we can understand these quirks and follies of human nature with some sympathy, but the climate bomb is ticking and time is running out.  Our worst nightmares have yet to unfold.

Top Kill, Bottom Kill

As Jeff Foxworthy might say, "you might be a liberal if you've ever taken extra trash bags on a two-day canoe trip just so you could pack out other people's trash." I have just arrived home sun-burnt, exhausted, and mentally recharged from a nice float down the Buffalo River. I needed it after completing this video of a bipartisan discussion on the BP oil spill. Enjoy!

How To Kick The Oil Habit

The conventional wisdom that we must depend on fossil fuels until we “transition to a new energy future” is a favorite of our political and media betters; problem is, they’ve been saying it for the past 30 years while doing absolutely nothing to further said “transition.” Now we face one crisis after another, after another.


Thanks a lot, assholes.

Never mind. I’ve said all along that this piece of conventional wisdom is false, a lie we’ve been told to make us feel better about our lack of action. Don’t worry, be happy. But sorry, peeps. Time to grow up. Time to call bullshit where we see it and demand some action, some leadership and some honesty.

Here’s a great place to start:

The last time lawmakers truly freaked out about the problem of our oil dependence--when gas prices topped $4 a gallon in the summer of 2008--the Senate Energy Committee called in Skip Laitner, director of economic analysis at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

The committee asked Laitner what efficiency--the famously unglamorous energy strategy--could do to relieve gas prices. He gave them an astonishing figure: It could save 46 billion barrels of oil. If the U.S. made an all-out investment in energy efficiency-cutting energy waste out of vehicles, buildings, the electrical grid, and elsewhere in the economy--Laitner believes it could save the energy equivalent of 46 billion barrels by 2030.

Domestic offshore drilling produced 537 million barrels a year over the last nine years, according to the Minerals Management Service. A full-bore efficiency plan would save the equivalent of 85 years of offshore drilling.

Let me repeat what I’ve said before: the oil companies are cutting back on refinery production, even shutting some refineries down permanently, in an effort to keep gas prices high. So I don’t believe conservation will lower gas prices significantly. But that’s not my concern. My concern is ecology, safety, and other areas of the economy that depend on our coastal areas. And it looks like conservation will give us that so-called “breathing room” we’ve been told we need offshore drilling to provide to fuel our transition to renewables.

Most of Laitner's “10 solutions” look fairly painless and easy to implement, but they require will, leadership, and commitment. We need to decide that we really do want to transition to renewables, not just use the words to justify our wasteful ways while we steep ourselves in denial.

There are tons more ideas from folks like Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, whose commentary Freeing America From Its Addiction To oil provides tons more pro-business, capitalistic solutions. But, as he notes, we need “real carrots, not just sticks painted orange.”

We can do this. It’s not hard. We have the motivation. We have the tecnology. We simply need to demand it of our leadership.

Paint it black.

By Captain Fogg

It amazes me how my fellow Floridians, so many of whose lives revolve around the rivers. lakes and coastline of the Sunshine State, so many of whom are actively concerned with keeping the natural environment natural, can still side with the polluters and despoilers when it comes to voting for Republicans who work for and ofter are developers, sugar producers and cattlemen with no vision that goes beyond this month's P&L. Will that change when the Gulf becomes a smelly dead sea, when the white sand turns to black and the drinking water runs out or will Florublicans continue the self-destructive doublethink?

It may be a week or more before the gushing well head in the Gulf is capped. The optimists say it may be months before the Gulf recovers, others say any return to life may take far longer since the oil cloud runs very deep and the dispersants used to break up the oil are toxic to the entire food chain and what settles to the bottom may leave it as hostile to life as a newly tarred section of the Interstate. Certainly the business food chains that begin with fishing and tourism will be devastated, but if you expect the Party of Business and Free Enterprise to give an oily damn, think again.

Palin and Kristol are flapping their jaws like sock puppets covering the hands of Exxon and BP trying to keep up the enthusiasm for more drilling and closer to the shore. It's about "energy security" says the big hair Runaway Governor without addressing the cost of this cleanup and the cost to all those who buy food that may now have to come from Asia and the Southern hemisphere and the cost to those who depend on non-toxic oceans.

“We believe that God shed his grace on thee. We still believe that America is exceptional.” she said while non sequitur alarms were set off around the world.

Indeed it is: exceptional in it's ability to justify being raped, cheated, pillaged and looted by the people for whom she speaks. Our security and the price of oil have little to do with the matter, it's about increased profits for companies whose profits have more than doubled in the last year, who get tax subsidies despite paying little or no US taxes. By the grace of God and Palin they'll do even better next year and it's not because the price of oil will go down or that there's enough offshore oil to make a difference or that the oil that's brought up will not be sold abroad. Far from making us more independent, it will makes us more dependent on multinational corporations with no motivation not to sell to the highest bidder; with no motivation but their own welfare.

The accident was the result of too much regulation said the more erudite but less credible Bill Kristol and we ought to do more of it and much closer to shore.

"Look, it was a bad accident but the fact is I think we get one-third of our domestic oil from the Gulf, from offshore drilling in the Gulf. We need it. We can't cut back on it,"

said Kristol as though the solution to a bad habit was increased indulgence, as though the best way to treat a dwindling resource was to use it faster. In fact saving it until later when the demand is higher may be the policy behind the fact that there is as little drilling going on as there is on leases they already have. No, we need ever riskier drilling in ever more sensitive areas because nothing is as important as using oil faster and faster. Not even honesty. Not even conservative handling of a precious asset. Just suck up more, suck it up faster and get it out there where we can burn it ever more extravagantly before the market forces of supply and demand can make us come to our senses and sell the Hummer.

Yes we can cut back on it and it has little to do with how wonderful we are or how much God loves us and Sarah Palin waves the flag, but no, it's the environmentalists who made us drill so far away from shore where it's harder to fix the blowout, says Bill. But don't look for logic in the words of either or from even oilier Rush who thinks environmentalist hippies poisoned the Gulf. Look for buck passing, shape shifting, gratuitous Obama bashing and justification for ever bigger control over our lives by the global oil cartel and the politicians and governments who work for them.

CYBER-HACKERS AND THE CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE

From Gordon Crovitz of the Wall Street Journal:

For anyone who doubts the power of the Internet to shine light on darkness, the news of the month is how digital technology helped uncover a secretive group of scientists who suppressed data, froze others out of the debate, and flouted freedom-of-information laws. Their behavior was brought to light when more than 1,000 emails, and some 3,500 additional files were published online, many of which boasted about how they suppressed hard questions about their data.

I have been writing about the impacts of energy on the economy, the environment, and public health since 1974. My career began as an educational and documentary filmmaker starting with this project: A Consumer Guide to the Energy Crisis (1974), a co-production of Prentice-Hall and the New York Daily News. Since the 1970s, I have written, directed, and produced numerous documentary films for Burns & Roe (engineers of utility-scale conventional and nuclear electric generating plants), the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Rural Electrification Administration (a division of the USDA). Although not an engineer or scientist by training, I am no stranger to the subject.

With respect to energy consumption and global climate change, it is hard to know where to begin. Shall we begin by talking about the hazards of coal starting with mining accidents … but by no means ending with slow agonizing deaths by black lung disease? Shall we talk about acid rain and the damage to North American forests, lakes, and streams? Or the Love Canal incident that drove hundreds of families from their homes after 21,000 tons of chemicals leached into their basements and groundwater? Or the oil slick that caused the Cuyahoga River to burst into flames? Or the incidence rate of cancer in the general population attributable to industrial pollutants? Or the 123 oil and gas platforms in the Gulf destroyed by Hurricane Katrina? Or the geopolitics of oil?

The history of corporate piggish and pigheadedness does not even begin to cover the global climate change debate.

I am tired … tired of corporate interests that put profits over public welfare, tired of privateers who pollute and pillage, and tired of climate change deniers and the want-it-now crowd lacking forethought as to the consequences of profligate consumption on future generations. I am tired of mendacities, false conspiracies, and every contrivance to confuse and confound the climate change debate.

These days, everyone is an expert with an opinion; but there is no prerequisite obligation to read a book or research a subject before blathering. Talk is cheap, and the Internet is cheapest where free confers a presumptive right to engage in free-for-alls. The Internet has not fulfilled its grand utopian vision as a repository of knowledge and scholarship; it has merely accelerated the spread of ignorance through viral messages and cyber-terrorism. If “the best lack all conviction,” there will always be " open-minded" neophytes and dilatants willing to be suckered by swift boaters and hackers engaged in criminal acts parading as heroism. When cyber-crooks poke holes in the dike to trap fingers and hands, that is when they steal your wallet. Its called distraction, distraction, distraction.

My career rewarded me with a decent income, but there is no money, no glory, and all too often little sense of accomplishment in blogging. Why do we bother? Are we motivated by some overwhelming sense of mission and purpose? Or do we blog just to amuse and entertain ourselves? Why bother when you have to watch your back at every turn.

ENERGY, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE INDIGNANT DESERT BIRDS OF WILLFUL SELF-DESTRUCTION

The enemy of realism is hubris.

- Reinhold Niebuhr -

It takes a special humility to understand our place in the natural world. Yet our mythology places us on a pedestal and speaks of human beings as having dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over cattle and every creature that creeps upon the earth, even over earth itself.

In our American history texts, we read of Manifest Destiny and the relentless expansion from sea to shining sea in search of territory, resources, and prosperity ... where our sense of freedom is predicated on abundance.

Notions of freedom and abundance turned the gears of the Industrial Revolution, which relied upon the labor of immigrants who arrived in waves to partake of the American Dream.  For them, dreams of freedom and abundance outweighed all deprivations including discrimination by race, religion, ethnicity, and class.

World War II turned America into an economic superpower. After the war, America possessed almost two-thirds of world's gold reserves, more than half of the world’s manufacturing capacity, and exported two-thirds of the world’s goods. The relationship between freedom and abundance was no longer the privilege of the few but had become the birthright of the many.

It is ironic to note how rapidly fortunes change ... and how the sudden scarcity of a once abundant resource leads to economic decline.  By 1970, as the demand for oil outpaced domestic production, America turned into a net importer and, within a generation, the largest creditor nation in the world turned into the largest debtor nation.  Today, our nation has 5% of the world's population yet consumes 25% of the world's oil and emits 40% of the world's pollutants.  With proven petroleum reserves of 21,317 million barrels, the Unites States has a 3 to 5 year supply beyond which our nation will be totally dependant on imports (source).

Of course, there are critics, pundits, and politicians who rally around the flag with chants of 'drill, baby, drill!'  Drill off the coasts, they say.  Drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. More opinionated than informed, what they do not know is that ANWR contains less than a year's supply of oil at current consumption rates … and production is a decade away.  There are others who want to strip mine the Bekken oil sands of North Dakota and the oil shale slopes of our Rocky Mountain States. At least 30 or more years of oil, they claim, but what they do not know is that less than 3% is recoverable … resulting in colossal environmental damage for negligible gain.

Grow our way out of the energy crisis, still others say. Distill ethanol from corn and switchgrass; but what these advocates have not considered is the enormous spike in food prices as agricultural land is diverted from food to energy production. Furthermore, a 70% increase in food production will be needed just to keep pace with projected worldwide population growth. Ethanol offers no solution beyond a good stiff drink.

Even our friends at Google have joined the ranks of Internet punditry with this expression:


What it means is 'renewable energy for less than the cost of coal.'  It is a statement about energy economics but little else. It tells us that any hypothetical alternative energy source must compete with coal, the cheapest commodity available, to be economically viable.  It says nothing about why non-combustible sources (such as nuclear, solar, wind, and geo-thermal) must be considered within the context of global climate change.


We cannot separate the energy crisis from the climate change crisis. In economic and environmental terms, these are two sides of the same coin. From the Industrial Revolution to the present, energy consumption has lead to a substantial rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases. Levels of carbon dioxide, which account for 62% of all greenhouses gases, have nearly doubled since 1750. Methane, which accounts for 20% all greenhouse gases, has risen 155% during the same period. Most disturbing of all, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts a 52% rise in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 … a mere 20 years away (source).

We approach global climate change as just another problem to be solved with good old American ingenuity. We cite the Manhattan project, the national highway system, and the space race as shining examples of past glory. However, global climate change is more than merely a technical or structural problem. It has deep historical and cultural roots and a system of unspoken values instilled from the beginning of civilization and passed from generation to generation.


“America is addicted to oil,” declared former President George Bush in his State of the Union address on January 31, 2006. Was the President signaling a dramatic shift in American energy policy, or were these merely pious words meant for the history books?  Scarcely a day after the speech, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman issued this disclaimer:  Don’t take the President literally.  In other words, there will be no rehab for America's addiction under this president.

The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 was the first of several warning shots.  Almost 40 years later, we are still dithering as if our energy policy paralysis is the sum total of our mythology, our culture, our national heritage, and a cowboy lifestyle that refuses to face reality.  More than these, our energy debate mirrors our healthcare debate: There are entrenched interests hell-bent on protecting their hordes of filthy lucre.

ExxonMobil gave $1.6 million to the American Enterprise Institute in an attempt to undercut the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a report widely regarded as the most comprehensive review of climate change science. The Bush administration sought to further undermine public awareness by censoring the key findings of climate scientists. Thus, our government, under pressure from the oil lobby, suppressed meaningful data to skew public debate.

Manipulating public opinion is easy when you are the CEO of Big Oil with money and lobbyists and politicians in your pocket. In the weeks and months ahead, Big Oil will be staging Astroturf events to protest new climate change legislation … groups such as Energy Citizens organized by the American Petroleum Institute whose members include Anadarko Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips, among others (source).

Let me digress for a moment to tell another Genesis story. It begins 400 million years ago, between the Devonian and Carboniferous Periods, when the earth was still hot and humid ... long before the polar ice regions formed.  As newly evolved forests drew carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and fell where they stood, their carbon buried under layers of sedimentary rock, the climate cooled and glaciers formed.

Hundreds of millions of years later, a peculiar Pleistocene creature walked the earth and learned in short order how to dig up and burn those fossil fuels to cook food, warm homes, build cities, drive Hummers, make microchips and Barbie dolls and a myriad of trinkets to delight the fancy ... but far removed from basic survival needs. In less than 25 generations, these peculiar Pleistocene creatures released into the atmosphere as much carbon as earth had sequestered over hundreds of millions of years. This is what is known as the anthropogenic cause of global climate change.



Meanwhile, the National Defense Institute explored the potential impact of global climate change as a threat to national security.  Its conclusion: Vulnerable regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the island nations of the Pacific will face food and water shortages, catastrophic flooding, unprecedented refugee crises, religious conflict, and the spread of contagious diseases. These will demand massive humanitarian aid efforts and/or a military response (source).

There will always be voices in the crowd who keep hearing messages the dead have stopped sending. There will always be voices arguing, not for the common good, but from pure self-interest. Implementing public policy changes are always difficult at best, and we can understand these quirks and follies of human nature with some sympathy, but the climate bomb is ticking and time is running out.  Our worst nightmares have yet to unfold.