Richard Whiteford

Humans are at the fulcrum point of deciding; do we want to continue pursuing unbridled unsustainable capitalism and destroy our earthly life support system, in which case economy will become a moot point; or do we make environmental protection and health our top priority and survive as a species?

There isn’t a more perfect example of why money should be removed from our political process than Senator James Inhofe (R-OKL).  He’s the epitome of a bought politician.

There are few as zealous against environmental protection as he. His most recent escapade was championing a bill S.J. Res 37 using an obscure Congressional Review Act to try to block the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule. Lucky for humanity, he lost.

The EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards require steep reductions of mercury, lead, arsenic, and other toxic pollutant emissions from coal-fired power plants.  It is estimated that the reduction of these pollutants will save 11,000 lives annually, prevent more than 100,000 asthma and heart attacks yearly, and it’s estimated to reduce associated medical cost by $80 billion annually.

Senator Inhofe is also one of the staunchest deniers of climate change. He held witch hunt hearings against established peer-reviewed climatologists like Dr. James Hansen at NASA and Dr. Michael Mann, a scientist on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) trying to discredit them by misquoting their scientific reports and telling outright lies about their science.

In his effort to discredit real climatologists, Inhofe pushed junk non peer-reviewed science and quack scientists like Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, and Frederick Sietz whose fake “science” has been publicly summarily and repeatedly debunked. They also have been exposed for receiving thousands, in some cases millions, of dollars from the fossil fuel industry either directly or funneled indirectly through extreme conservative “think tanks” like The Heartland Institute and the George C. Marshal Institute. Basing his “proof” that climate change is a hoax on their phony science, Inhofe coined his infamous phrase, “climate change is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”. He, more than anyone, is responsible for derailing vital climate change legislation in congress. 

If his campaign contributions were overlooked one might think he were insane. After all, on the Rachel Maddow Show on March 15, 2012 Inhofe said, “I was actually on your side on the issue (global warming) when I was chairing the committee (Senate Environmental Committee) and I first heard about this. I thought it must be true until I found out what it would cost (to fix it).”  What?

Perhaps he meant to say, how much it paid to be a denier. According to Opensecrets, Inhofe accepted $311,800 in oil contributions during the 110^th Congress.  He received $662,506 from oil companies between 2000 and 2008, making him the top congressional recipient of oil money.  He has received $152,800 in coal industry contributions during the 110^th Congress.  Opensecrets listed Inhofe’s top five campaign contributors from 2005 to 2010 as: Koch Industries - $41,800, Murray Energy - $31,100, Reed Elsevier Inc. - $29,450, OEG Energy - $21,800, and Contran Corp - $21,500. Inhofe’s campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry since 1998 total $1,189,050. No wonder he’s against environmental regulations! While he was receiving all of this money he’s been serving on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; as Chairman from 2003 to 2007 and now as Ranking Minority member. Talk about the fox in the hen house!

After his junk science and his quack scientists were summarily discredited, he tried a new tactic - religion. In a radio interview with Vic Eliason on Voice of Christian Youth America, Inhofe said “only God can change the climate, and the idea that manmade pollution could affect the seasons is “arrogance”. In his book, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, Inhofe quotes Genesis 8:22, “as long as the Earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night “, as his biblical foundation for disbelieving human caused climate change.

Meanwhile scientists measure 91 million tons of CO2 pumping into the atmosphere globally every 24 hours. They watched CO2 levels rise 116 parts per million (PPM) in the last 120 years, or so, to today’s 396.18 PPM. This steep jump in CO2 levels comes after an 800,000 year period of CO2 levels hovering at a steady natural average of around 280 PPM. That sudden jump is not natural and we know it comes directly from burning fossil fuels. Scientists also observe the ten hottest years on record occurring since 1998. To continuing to burn fossil fuels is total insanity.

Now, if Senator Inhofe were so religiously inspired where is his love and compassion for the humans that suffer now from pollution and climate change around the planet?  In fact, considering that his state, Oklahoma, suffered from extreme droughts and tornadoes in 2011 and ranchers lost over 117,000 head of cattle, and many their livelihoods, how can he possibly deny climate change and keep a straight face?  

Campaign financing PAC and Super PAC money keeps legislators like him in power. Inhofe doesn’t represent the people of Oklahoma; he’s a pimp for the fossil fuel industry.  His brand of politician is destroying our democracy and our ability to survive on this planet.

 It’s all about money, but if we disrupt earth’s life support system, the economy will be a moot point.  It’s time for people to pay attention and change the system.

Wild fires, wild storms, early excessive heat. CO2 levels at the highest ever, now 396.48 PPM. That's 116 PPM higher than any time in at least the last 800,000 years.

My testimony at the EPA last week:

May, 24, 2012
EPA Docket Center
Room 3334,
1301 Constitution Ave., NW,
Washington, DC, 20460. 

Reference: Public hearings on proposed carbon pollution standard for new power plants.

I’m sure you know that CO2 levels are now at 396.18 parts per million (PPM) according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That’s over 116 PPM higher than any time in the last 800,000 years during which it hovered around 280 PPM. That increase happened in roughly the last 120 years.

We know beyond any doubt that this rapid increase is due to humans burning fossil fuels. We are also seeing the effects of this level of CO2 in frequent and severe storms in some areas and more prolonged severe droughts in others. These events are causing billions of dollars in property and business losses and displacing millions of people globally. It will, in the near future, cause catastrophic disruption to water supplies, agriculture production, and food availability to millions of people on several continents leading to famine and wars.

Due to this, and given no matter how you burn oil, gas, wood or coal, it’s end product is CO2 that further exacerbates the problem. That’s why this proposal for a carbon pollution standard for new power plants won’t work. 

 At this writing there is no known technology that can “reduce” CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels or to sequester it. That’s a pipe dream. Our only option is to stop burning it. Shift the oil company subsidies to non-carbon based energy technology as soon as possible and get that technology moving.

Much of the delay is caused from the politicization of climate change by anti-science campaigns well funded by the fossil fuel industry and orchestrated by “think tanks” like the Heartland Institute and the George C. Marshall Institute, to name a few. With the overwhelming peer-reviewed science that supports the fact that climate change is real, dangerous, and urgent, how did the government let hearsay triumph science?

The United States Government has squandered precious time by not taking this problem serious enough years ago when we could have lessened the impacts of climate change by keeping CO2 levels lower. What’s even worse, the United States’ leadership on the world stage has been abysmal causing critical delays in worldwide cooperation.

The Administration needs to get some backbone, shut the climate deniers up, and get us off of fossil fuels now. For the sake of the continuation of the human race why in the name of God aren’t you doing this?
Richard Whiteford – The Climate Reality Project
908 Covington Drive

Downingtown, PA 19335   610-246-7974 - Savebisophere3@verizon.net

“Follow the money” advised Deep Throat, the clandestine informer in the movie All the President’s Men about the Watergate break-in. Well, that advice also applies to the massive disinformation campaign financed by the fossil fuel industry and promoted by the Heartland Institute to convince government officials and the public that climate change is a hoax in spite of the fact that peer reviewed science and every National Academy of Science on the planet proves otherwise.

 Very little of Heartland’s anti-climate “science” is peer reviewed which means that it is not really science. Much of it comes from the infamous Fred Singer and his phony Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). Fred Singer is the “scientist” that the tobacco industry held up against medical research to claim that smoking doesn’t cause cancer. Then the chemical industry paraded him out to claim that CFC’s didn’t destroy ozone in the atmosphere. Now, in perfect succession, he goes against overwhelming evidence that proves climate change is very real and at a very dangerous level. In fact Singer is so bogus that he listed Fredrick Seitz as Chairman of SEPP on his IRS 990 forms for two years after Seitz died.  Not only that, there are some highly questionable money transactions being investigate with both SEPP and Heartland along with a few other “think tanks”.

The Heartland Institute boasts of feeding their disinformation to 7,300 state elected officials and 8,400 county and local officials. They say “they reach more elected officials, more often, than any other think tank in the U.S.” Considering that Heartland is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization with restrictions on lobbying activities it would seem they are in violation of the nonprofit laws.

In preparation for its International Conference on Climate Change from May 21 - 23 in Chicago, Heartland sponsored the most sophomoric hysterically lunatic billboard campaign depicting people who believe in the peer reviewed proven climate science as being like some of the world’s most notorious criminals like Charles Manson, Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber, and Osama bin Laden. Really now!

Considering all of the above, who in their right mind would give the Heartland Institute the time of day – other than likeminded paranoids?  Besides the fossil fuel industry and the tobacco industry it will be interesting to see who continues to fund them, and even more interesting, who with any serious level of credibility will be willing to be seen in public with them. 

Here's a great link to an analysis of how the planet is heating up:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/16/445846/breaking-news-the-earth-is-still-warming-a-lot/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29

Are Humans Suicidal?

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/21/428884/crossing-the-line-heartland-institute-peter-gleick-and-andrew-revkin/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29

An Open Letter to the Heartland Institute

As scientists who have had their emails stolen, posted online and grossly misrepresented, we can appreciate the difficulties the Heartland Institute is currently experiencing following the online posting of the organization’s internal documents earlier this week. However, we are greatly disappointed by their content, which indicates the organization is continuing its campaign to discredit mainstream climate science and to undermine the teaching of well-established climate science in the classroom.

We know what it feels like to have private information stolen and posted online via illegal hacking. It happened to climate researchers in 2009 and again in 2011. Personal emails were culled through and taken out of context before they were posted online. In 2009, the Heartland Institute was among the groups that spread false allegations about what these stolen emails said. Despite multiple independent investigations, which demonstrated that allegations against scientists were false, the Heartland Institute continued to attack scientists based on the stolen emails. When more stolen emails were posted online in 2011, the Heartland Institute again pointed to their release and spread false claims about scientists.

So although we can agree that stealing documents and posting them online is not an acceptable practice, we would be remiss if we did not point out that the Heartland Institute has had no qualms about utilizing and distorting emails stolen from scientists.

We hope the Heartland Institute will heed its own advice to “think about what has happened” and recognize how its attacks on science and scientists have helped poison the debate over climate change policy. The Heartland Institute has chosen to undermine public understanding of basic scientific facts and personally attack climate researchers rather than engage in a civil debate about climate change policy options.

These are the facts: Climate change is occurring. Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change. Climate change is already disrupting many human and natural systems. The more heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere, the more severe those disruptions will become. Major scientific assessments from the Royal Society, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, United States Global Change Research Program and other authoritative sources agree on these points.

Here’s the rest of the letter and the signatories:

What businesses, policymakers, advocacy groups and citizens choose to do in response to those facts should be informed by the science. But those decisions are also necessarily informed by economic, ethical, ideological, and other considerations. While the Heartland Institute is entitled to its views on policy, we object to its practice of spreading misinformation about climate research and personally attacking climate scientists to further its goals.

We hope the Heartland Institute will begin to play a more constructive role in the policy debate. Refraining from misleading attacks on climate science and climate researchers would be a welcome first step toward having an honest, fact-based debate about the policy responses to climate change.

• Ray Bradley, PhD, Director of the Climate System Research Center, University of Massachusetts
• David Karoly, PhD, ARC Federation Fellow and Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia
• Michael Mann, PhD, Director, Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University
• Jonathan Overpeck, PhD, Professor of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona
• Ben Santer, PhD, Research Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• Gavin Schmidt, PhD, Climate Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
• Kevin Trenberth, ScD, Distinguished Senior Scientist, Climate Analysis Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research

CO2 emissions jumped 5.9 percent in 2010 according to the Global Carbon Project, an international body of scientists that follow the numbers.

North American Bat Death Toll Exceeds 5.5 Million From White-nose Syndrome

On the verge of another season of winter hibernating bat surveys, U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service biologists and partners estimate that at least

5.7 million to 6.7 million bats have now died from white-nose syndrome.

Biologists expect the disease to continue to spread.

CO2 levels averaged out to 392.95 Parts Per Million last week. That is really high. Check it out! http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released an analysis, “U.S. sets record with a dozen billion-dollar weather disasters in one year.”  They report:

§ To date, the United States set a record with 12 separate billion dollar weather/climate disasters in 2011, with an aggregate damage total of approximately $52 billion. This record year breaks the previous record of nine billion-dollar weather/climate disasters in one year, which occurred in 2008.

§ These twelve disasters alone resulted in the tragic loss of 646 lives, with the National Weather Service reporting over 1,000 deaths across all weather categories for the year.

Society had better pay attention and get cracking:

Published on Monday, December 5, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
The Most Important News Story of the Day/Millennium
by Bill McKibben

The most important piece of news yesterday, this week, this month, and this year was a new set of statistics released yesterday by the Global Carbon Project. It showed that carbon emissions from our planet had increased 5.9 percent between 2009 and 2010. In fact, it was arguably among the most important pieces of data in the last, oh, three centuries, since according to the New York Times it represented “almost certainly the largest absolute jump in any year since the Industrial Revolution.”

What it means, in climate terms, is that we’ve all but lost the battle to reduce the damage from global warming. The planet has already warmed about a degree Celsius; it’s clearly going to go well past two degrees. It means, in political terms, that the fossil fuel industry has delayed effective action for the 12 years since the Kyoto treaty was signed. It means, in diplomatic terms, that the endless talks underway in Durban should be more important than ever--they should be the focus of a planetary population desperate to figure out how it’s going to survive the century. [350.org] 350.org

But instead, almost no one is paying attention to the proceedings, at least on this continent. One of our political parties has decided that global warming is a hoax--it’s two leading candidates are busily apologizing for anything they said in the past that might possibly have been construed as backing, you know, science. President Obama hasn’t yet spoken on the Durban talks, and informed international observers like Joss Garman are beginning to despair that he ever will.

Who are the 99%? In this country, they’re those of us who aren’t making any of these deadly decisions. In this world, they’re the vast majority of people who didn’t contribute to those soaring emissions. In this biosphere they’re every other species now living on a disorienting earth.

You think OWS is radical? You think 350.org was radical for helping organize mass civil disobedience in DC in August against the Keystone Pipeline?  We’re not radical. Radicals work for oil companies. The CEO of Exxon gets up every morning and goes to work changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. No one has ever done anything as radical as that, not in all of human history. And he and his ilk spend heavily on campaigns to make sure no one stops them--the US Chamber of Commerce gave more money than the DNC and the RNC last cycle, and 94% of it went to climate deniers.

Corporate power has occupied the atmosphere. 2011 showed we could fight back. 2012 would be a good year to step up the pressure. Because this time next year the Global Carbon Project will release another number. And I’m betting it will be grim.

Originally posted on Daily Kos.
Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and co-founder of 350.org. His most recent book is Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.

The Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists tracking the amount of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels recorded the biggest jump in CO2 emissions ever recorded. Emissions worldwide rose 5.9 percent in 2010.

This unprecedented rise makes it difficult, if not impossible, to prevent severe climate change impacts in the coming decades. The longer we do nothing the longer we doom our own existence.

Here is an interesting interactive Climate Data Guide: https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/

I recently did a little research regarding a Solar Lease system (Solar Panel Installation) that services several states in the US.  I know many of you would consider getting solar panels but the investment cost is typically abundant.  This program allows you to get solar as a service for $0 money down (the installation and equipment is built into the lease) and once the system is installed you'll pay less for the energy you currently use every day.  Solar Panels offer many great benefits:  

• Environment protection
• Energy independence
• Green jobs
• Combat the rising rates of energy

To obtain more information, visit http://www.sungevity.com/home-1c or call 866-SUN-4ALL for free information on the technology, benefits, and this lease service

Why we need to stop burning fossil fuels right now.

We have passed the threshold of abating the consequences of the climate change effects that will come from the 391 Parts per Million (PPM) of CO2 that currently exists in the atmosphere. The extreme heat waves, droughts, wild fires, tornadoes, heavy downpours, and devastating floods that were not only experienced in America, but around the world are a harbinger of what is to come. It can only get worse as CO2 continues to rise. CO2 is going up at roughly 3 PPM per year as we pump 50 million tons of CO2 in the atmosphere every 24 hours. Our only recourse is to cut fossil fuel use as soon as absolutely possible. It is imperative that people and politicians listen to the CLIMATE scientists and not the smoke screen so-called scientists paid for by the fossil fuel industries and take this issue dead seriously. Every puff of CO2 adds further to the problem. Take a look at what the weather events looked like so far this year and ask yourself if you want it to look worse than this next year and worse again the year after that and so on. 

European Union climate chief Connie Hedegaard is disposing of diplomatic niceties when describing U.S. political battles over climate change.

“I’m shocked that the political debate in the U.S. is so far away from the scientific facts,” she said, according to The Copenhagen Post. [ ©European Parliament/Pietro Naj-Oleari)] "It’s hard for a European to understand how it has become so fashionable to be anti-science in the U.S.,” Hedegaard said. (photo: ©European Parliament/Pietro Naj-Oleari)

“When more than 90 percent of researchers in the field are saying that we have to take [climate change] seriously, it is incredibly irresponsible to ignore it. It’s hard for a European to understand how it has become so fashionable to be anti-science in the U.S.,” Hedegaard said in the Post account, which reprints comments she made to the Danish paper Politiken.

“And when you hear American presidential candidates denying climate change, it’s difficult to take,” she said.

Her remarks come amid a split in the GOP presidential field, where candidates including Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann dispute the mainstream scientific view that the planet is warming and human activities are a key factor.

While, on the campaign trail, a woman at an Obama rally shouted that American terrorists are left-wing environmentalists! As an environmentalist, I’ve been called a socialist, a communist, a terrorist, and other not so nice things.

While doing a climate change presentation at a movie theater, a group of Tea Partiers burst in and came down the center isle shouting, “global warming is a hoax” over and over until most of the audience left in fear of violence. The police had to escort me to my car. Hey Tea Party whatever happened to freedom of speech?

Perhaps many Tea Partiers’ are too young to remember Love Canal, a toxic dump that increased cancer rates in a New York community, or Ohio’s Cuyahoga River that caught fire from the toxic pollutants being dumped in it by unregulated industries?

Perhaps they forget that it was a Republican President, Richard Nixon, who established the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act.

Of course big corporations hate these regulations because it costs them a small percentage of profit that would otherwise go into their pockets so they finance “think tanks” (what an oxymoron) like The American Enterprise Institute, The Cato Institute, and The Marshall Institute to name a few that feed money to pseudo-scientists to dispel real science to get rid of environmental regulations. 

They bring out “scientists” like Fred Singer who prostituted himself to the tobacco industry clamming cigarettes didn’t cause cancer. An industry memo that leaked to the press said “they wanted to create doubt in the public’s mind.” Then the chemical industry marched Singer out to claim that CFCs didn’t cause of the ozone hole in the atmosphere. Next, Singer came out disputing the science behind acid rain. Now, of course, he is one of the most outspoken “scientists” saying that climate change is a hoax. There are a few other scientists associated with these “think tanks” on the industry doll and it is amazing that they get so much traction in the media. More people get their message than get the true scientific facts.

Over 2,500 climatologists and every National Academy of Science worldwide agrees with the science behind climate change and are very alarmed about it. On top of that, just look around at the extreme weather events that are destroying, crops, livestock, water supplies, and communities to realize something very unusual is going on.

Imagine if the Tea Party and their ilk succeed in getting rid of our terrorist left-wing environmental regulations. What would that be like? 

Let’s begin in western Kentucky and West Virginia where the coal industry, due to very lax regulations, have so far, lopped off over 500 mountain tops destroying the natural beauty of the Appalachian Mountains, removing entire towns, and destroying hundreds of miles of streams – all to get coal the cheapest way possible. Coal is the most dangerous and dirty fossil fuel we can burn and we should stop using it now. Coal Companies claim mountain top removal creates jobs, yet they replace 40 miners with each long-line machine they introduce.

Next, look at the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania New York, and New Jersey. With weak regulations, pristine state forests, game lands, and state parks, and people’s private property values are being destroyed by drilling activities and unsightly drilling pads and slurry ponds. People’s water supplies are being polluted with toxic fracking chemicals because environmental regulations are too weak to force drilling companies to tell people what’s being pumped into their groundwater. Some people set their faucets on fire by holding a match under it as water comes out.

Just because you don’t live in the Marcellus Shale area, don’t think you are exempt from this contamination. Much of that polluted water will seep into the Schuylkill and the Delaware waterways from underground channels and come right to your spigots. Not knowing what’s in the water means that your municipalities will not know how to treat it to make it safe.

These are just two current examples of why environmental regulations are vital to protect public health.  If it weren’t for the Clean Air Act, our air would be like China’s, so dirty that you wouldn’t be able to see from one end of a football field to the other.  God help you if you have a respiratory disease! And shame on President Obama for not having the spine to implement the tighter ozone regulations at the EPA last week.

 So, the next time you turn on your faucet to get a drink of water or make a pot of tea, remember to thank your luck stars for us terrorist commie left-wing environmentalist. 

 On September 3, 2011 243 courageous people were hauled away to jail -- it’s the last day of Phase 1 of the tar sands campaign, and 1,252 North Americans have been arrested, the biggest civil disobedience action this century on this continent.


I was arrest number 129 and got hauled away in a paddy wagon after protesting in front of the White House against the Tar Sands pipe line project. If we burn the amount of oil that the tar sands contain CO2 levels will rise to well over 700 PPM and destroy most life-forms on the planet. We cannot allow this to happen!