Frances Beinecke at the Natural Resources Defense Council writes
Hurricane Sandy hits home:
Some leaders ignore climate change, some belittle it, and others counsel patience. Yet people living in the path of Hurricane Sandy understand that America can’t wait any longer to protect our communities from more extreme weather events. [...]
Climate change has become pervasive. “The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question,” writes Kevin E. Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.”
I know New York and New Jersey are resilient places. I have seen them recover from terrorist attacks and economic downturns, and I am confident communities up and down the East Coast will recover from Hurricane Sandy.
But when will we stop asking them to rebuild in the wake of disasters? When will we start confronting the challenge of climate change before more people are endangered? When will we begin arming our towns and cities with the tools they need to respond to extreme weather?
The longer we wait to have an open national conversation about climate change, the more communities will be in harm’s way. We live in the richest country in the 21st century. Surely we can have a civil conversation about how to prepare and deal with climate change. We can discuss the science, we can debate the politics, we can dispute the policy measures. But we cannot wait any longer.
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2010—Rightist 'outsiders' plan 2012 cash flood:
Beyond Tuesday is where the right has focused its attention. Not that it wasn't obvious the minute the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case was decided 10 months ago, but the right-wingers who had a few of their fingers pried off the nation's throat in 2006 and 2008 are preparing to get a better grip come 2012. Jim Rutenberg at The New York Times reports:
Officials with the two conservative groups, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS — which are on track to spend well over $50 million combined this year, a sizable part of it from undisclosed donors — said they would continue advertising against Democrats as Congress returns, when decisions loom on the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts and immigration.
Robert M. Duncan, the chairman of American Crossroads, which, like Crossroads GPS, was started with help from the Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, said he also informed major donors late last week that “research and development” was under way to make the groups even more effective in the next election, part of a pitch for continued investment toward a larger goal.
“It’s a bigger prize in 2012, and that’s changing the White House,” Mr. Duncan said. “We’ve planted the flag for permanence, and we believe that we will play a major role for 2012.”
However many seats the Republicans gain in Congress, Tuesday's outcome won't slow down the right's effort to cash in on the bonanza the 5-4 Supreme Court's decision provides them. One thing to expect: As more money flows into the coffers of American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS and other outsider groups, chances are that ad campaigns which in the past have clustered around elections will spread out, becoming a year-round affair regardless of when the elections are. Thus can Karl Rove, et al., put the cudgel to left-of-center approaches to governance and seek to transform every Democrat - regardless of voting record—into a radical in the minds of voters. |
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