"MIT at center of political power play; The school’s prized fusion reactor was dead; its federal funding axed. Then its political allies went to work" by Tracy Jan | Globe Staff June 08, 2014
CAMBRIDGE — Senator Elizabeth Warren placed her hand atop a large red button and pressed firmly, restarting a nuclear experiment that MIT believes could help save the planet — but which the Obama administration considered superfluous and tried to kill year after year.
More than 100 scientists, engineers, and technicians — most of whom had, until recently, been under layoff notices — had gathered on campus that cold February day, their eyes glued to the three projection screens hanging from the front of the control room.
Then as superhot plasma inside the fusion reactor next door reached its metal walls, a flash of light appeared on one of the screens. The grand energy experiment had throbbed back to life.
And applause filled the room.
The dream could not be bigger: produce nuclear power without the radioactive waste or meltdown potential; generate an unlimited clean source of energy by replicating the sun’s power on Earth. The federally funded research project for what is known as nuclear fusion has been, for more than a decade, the single largest science experiment for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in terms of employees and budget.
Somehow, these wondrous methods never seem to reach fruition as oil and gas company profits soar.
But the Obama administration, while sharing the hope that nuclear fusion will one day be harnessed as a power source, concluded that the MIT experiment was a waste of taxpayer money. It deemed MIT’s facility outdated and small, the least scientifically useful of three domestic fusion reactors. Indeed, critics of the experiment said it amounts to a $1.5 million-per-student training program that MIT wants to keep going to protect its turf and prestige.
The White House believed that tax dollars were better spent on reactors in New Jersey and California, and it diverted some of the MIT money for a France-based international project of unprecedented scale. MIT’s fusion experiment was slated for elimination in the 2013 and 2014 budgets.
“I personally would like to see us build the most modern type of machine. We thought the only way to do that was to do without MIT’s,” said William Brinkman, former director of the Office of Science at the Department of Energy. “But closing a facility is not an easy thing. It’s a political hornet’s nest.”
This is a story about those “hornets” and that nest, about the extraordinary multifront lobbying campaign waged by one of the most powerful research universities in the country. It was an exercise of muscle along the Massachusetts-Washington axis that did something significant even on gridlocked Capitol Hill — restoring funding for a program axed by the White House.
Part of the broken city, but that has been forgotten because it was nothing more than bitching by the Globe that their gun-control, global-warming agenda was stalled.
“In the end, it is about picking a winner and a parochial effort to direct money to MIT,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based watchdog group. “It’s certainly a case of lawmakers bucking the president and putting their thumb on the scale for a particular project.”
MIT enlisted the support of a wealthy Democratic donor from Concord and the help of an influential Washington think-tank co-founded by John Kerry.
Yeah, the Globe really does make you think.
These efforts were backed by lobbyists, including a former congressman from Massachusetts, with connections to the right lawmakers on the right committees. The cast also included an alliance of universities, industry and national labs, all invested in the fusion dream.
“It’s ground-breaking research that could lead an energy revolution,” Warren said. “This was not about politics. This was about good science.”
It's where the juncture of science and politics is, and from crisis, an opportunity.
--more--"
Related: Liz Warren Eats Hamburg
Now I see why Liz Warren is allowed to serve. Other than bloviating about banks and student loans she is a supporter of Military Industrial Tech and Pre$cription Pharma. Time to close the book on someone who is just another politician (sob).
"GOP leaders in Fla. dismiss risks to state of rising sea levels; Efforts to address climate change seen as alarmist" by Michael J. Mishak | Associated Press June 08, 2014
MIAMI BEACH — There are few places in the nation more vulnerable to rising sea levels than low-lying South Florida, a tourist and retirement mecca built on drained swampland.
Related: The Rising Level of Bulls***
It has never stopped flowing.
Yet as other coastal states and the Obama administration take aggressive measures to battle the effects of global warming, Florida’s top Republican politicians are challenging the science and balking at government fixes.
There is global warming except when it comes to the failing economy; then it was a long, cold winter.
That's the problem when you have second-tier talent and your brother's boy writing the propaganda. The contradictions are glaring.
Among the chief skeptics are US Senator Marco Rubio and former governor Jeb Bush, both possible presidential candidates in 2016. Governor Rick Scott, who is running for reelection, has worked with the Republican-controlled Legislature to dismantle Florida’s fledgling climate change initiatives. They were put into place by his predecessor and current opponent, Democrat Charlie Crist.
Related: Jesus Crist
It's not Rubio, and Bush's brother was the exact opposite.
*************
Scott and other Republicans warn against what they see as alarmist policies that could derail the country’s tenuous economic recovery.
What recovery?
Their positions could affect their political fortunes.
Democrats plan to place climate change, and the GOP’s skepticism, front and center in a state where the issue is no longer an abstraction.
Then they ensure their loss! Can't place Obummercare front and center!
Their hope is to win over independents and siphon some Republicans, who are deeply divided over global warming. Tom Steyer, a billionaire environmental activist, has pledged to spend $100 million this year to influence seven critical contests nationwide, including the Florida governor’s race.
Pffft!
The battle in the country’s largest swing state offers a preview of what could be a pivotal fight in the next presidential election.
Pffft!
Crist is running for his old job as a Democrat, criticizing Scott and Florida Republicans for reversing his efforts to curb global warming. ‘‘They don’t believe in science. That’s ridiculous,’’ Crist said at a recent campaign rally in Miami.
Related: CLIMATEGATE
I know what I no longer believe in, Chuck.
Nationally, the issue could prove tricky for Democrats.
This is starting to stink.
Polls show a bipartisan majority of Americans favor measures to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gases, such as the new federal rule to limit carbon emissions from power plants. But they routinely rank climate change far behind the economy, the centerpiece of Scott’s campaign, when prioritizing issues.
‘‘This is not a future problem. It’s a current problem,’’ said Leonard Berry, director of the Florida Center for Environmental Studies at Florida Atlantic University and a contributing author of the National Climate Assessment, which found that sea levels have risen about 8 inches in the past century.
Level of bullshit still rising!
Miami Beach is expected to spend $400 million on an elaborate pumping system to cope with routine flooding. To the north, Fort Lauderdale has shelled out millions to restore beaches and a section of coastal highway after Hurricane Sandy and other storms breached the city’s concrete sea wall.
Florida lacks a statewide approach to the effects of climate change, although just a few years ago, it was at the forefront on the issue.
In 2007, Crist, then a Republican, declared global warming ‘‘one of the most important issues that we will face this century,’’ signed executive orders to tighten tailpipe emission standards for cars and opposed coal-fired power plants.
Bush, his predecessor, had pushed the state to diversify its energy mix and prioritize conservation.
It occurred too me at this point that the elite are so bankrupt, corrupt, and exclusive that they can only offer these retreads as candidates.
With little opposition, the GOP-led Legislature passed a bill that laid the groundwork for a California-style cap-and-trade system to cut carbon emissions.
Proving both parties work for banks.
But the efforts sputtered as the economy collapsed and Crist and Rubio faced off in a divisive 2010 Republican primary for US Senate.
Although Rubio had voted for Crist’s landmark environmental measure as a state legislator, he soon hammered the governor for what he called a ‘‘cap-and-trade scheme.’’ Seeking support from the growing Tea Party movement, he distanced himself from the vote.
Rubio also began to voice doubts about whether climate change is man-made, a doubt he shares with Bush. Both have stuck to that position.
You kind of have to when the weather outside contradicts everything coming from agenda-pushing mouthpieces and the interests they serve.
--more--"
I hope they wash out with the tide.
"Some states well ahead in race to cut emissions" by Justin Gillis and Michael Wines | New York Times June 07, 2014
The cries of protest have been fierce, warning that President Obama’s plan to cut greenhouse gases from power plants would bring soaring electricity bills and even plunge the nation into blackouts. By the time the administration is finished, one prominent critic said, “millions of Americans will be freezing in the dark.”
Yet cuts on the scale Obama is calling for — a 30 percent reduction in emissions from the nation’s electricity industry by 2030 — have already been accomplished in swaths of the country....
Must be why the earth has been static or cooling the last 15 years.
That does not mean these states are off the hook under the Obama plan unveiled this week — they will probably be expected to cut more to help achieve the overall national goal — but their strides so far have not brought economic ruin.
Not to the 1%, no.
In New England, a region that has made some of the biggest cuts in emissions, residential electricity bills fell 7 percent from 2005 to 2012, adjusted for inflation. And economic growth in the region ran slightly ahead of the national average.
That's a LIE they keep repeating and repeating!
“This is not going to be the Armageddon that some people think,” said Teresa Marks, director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
In fact, with years left to reach Obama’s goal, and many states already heading in that direction, some of the loudest attacks on the plan are coming from those who contend it is not ambitious enough.
“I think it’s properly ambitious — for the first term of the Bill Clinton administration,” said Bill McKibben, the president and co-founder of 350.org, a group pushing for climate action. “Given the melting Antarctic, we obviously should be doing far, far more, but at least we’re finally started, and that’s to Obama’s credit.”
Related: Taking Global Warming on Faith
Finally, a breath of fresh air!
*********
The Obama administration’s plan is not expected to become final until next year. Once it does, intense political and legal opposition is likely to follow, especially from the coal industry and from states run by Republican governors and legislators.
But even in states that have made big cuts, the Obama plan is provoking some wariness, with officials there pointing out that the plan would saddle them with stringent targets requiring them to go further.
Anything he does provokes that because he is nothing but a telegenic globalist servant.
Yet many of the states that are most dependent on coal — and have made the least effort to cut greenhouse gases — were given only moderate targets....
Willingness aside, some states are simply unsure how they will meet Obama’s targets.
South Carolina, for instance, was assigned a steep carbon- reduction goal. But officials of Santee Cooper, the state-owned utility that is South Carolina’s largest power supplier, say the options to meet it are limited. Natural gas supplies are constrained by a dearth of pipelines, and the wind turbines that are rapidly sprouting elsewhere are not practical because of the state’s placid weather, said Mollie Gore, the utility’s spokeswoman.
“This will hurt South Carolina because it will drive up power costs and send industries packing — it’ll cost jobs,” she said.
I'm told that is just spew.
Opponents attacked Obama’s plan in vociferous terms this week, with the claim about Americans “freezing in the dark” coming from Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, a Chicago group skeptical of climate change.
But more optimistic assessments of the plan came from utility executives and many state officers who would have to carry it out.
“I predict this will be far easier and far faster and far cheaper than most people realize,” said Hal Harvey, chief executive of Energy Innovation, a research group....
--more--"
Also see: EPA policy reflects true cost of coal
Related:
"A terrain-changing try to breed more cottontails; Native rabbit nears endangered status as development reduces habitat" by David Abel | Globe Staff June 09, 2014
MASHPEE — The controlled burn last month on Cape Cod was part of a multimillion-dollar effort by federal and state agencies to rebuild the dwindling habitat of the New England cottontail, which lives in the dense bramble found in new forest growth.
Now HOW does THAT HELP with GLOBAL WARMING?
*******************
The rabbit, which has perky ears and a tail that looks like a puff of cotton, is the only animal from New England that federal officials are now considering as a candidate for the nation’s list of endangered species.
So what land does the federal government want to seize? We just saw this in Nevada!
To avoid granting that rare designation (the protection provided by endangered status would create an expensive regulatory burden for developers and the government) federal and state officials have already spent $24 million and plan to spend tens of millions more to rebuild the population of the native rabbits, which for millennia inhabited the region in large numbers.
Look, I like the furry cute rabbits as much as anybody, but we are living in a nation that is pushing social service austerity while they spend millions on this?
How much food would $24 million buy for hungry Americans?
The expense is necessary, biologists say, because the rabbits play an important role in the ecosystem and represent the unique biodiversity of the region. The work to protect them also benefits scores of other animals who share the same habitat.
“If we allow the species to blink out, then it’s just a matter of time before we become concerned about another species,” said Anthony Tur, an endangered species biologist and director of the New England Cottontail Initiative, an effort by federal and state agencies to save the rabbit. “At some point, we have to draw the line. How many species should we be willing to lose before we do something about the problem? For the Endangered Species Act, the tolerance is zero.”
HOW ARROGANT!
See: George Carlin on The Environment
You can still hear him whispering in the trees!
No one knows precisely how many cottontails remain in New England but wildlife biologists believe they have vanished from Vermont and dwindled to several hundred elsewhere.
Oh, so this is ALL BASED on BULLSHIT, huh?
Those remaining live in patches of young forests spread like islands over a few thousand acres across New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. They used to be found in every part of Massachusetts but now live only in Eastern Cape Cod and parts of the Berkshires.
Unlike other rabbits, the native cottontails rely on the low-lying shrubs of young forests for food and protection from predators, such as raptors, owls, coyotes, and foxes. Much of the area’s remaining forests have matured and are no longer suitable habitats.
So it's basically nature taking its course, huh?
The at-risk rabbits haven’t adapted like the similar-looking, nonnative, and far more abundant Eastern cottontails. Those rabbits, brought to the region by trappers in the 19th century, flourished because they have better peripheral vision than the native bunnies, allowing them to hop to safety more quickly and thrive in less-forested areas.
With the right conditions, wildlife biologists say, they could repopulate quickly....
They f*** like rabbits from what I've heard.
They may also benefit from climate change, as warmer winters might mean more food, cover, and better camouflage....
Say what?
Perhaps the reduction in numbers is due to the record cold winters, 'eh?
That includes not only controlled burns, to spur the growth of shrubs, but also a captive breeding program at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence....
The controlled burns on Cape Cod should bear results within a year or two, officials said....
Notice how talk of drought and wildfires has receded from my pos paper?
Also see: EPA policy reflects true cost of coal
Related:
"A terrain-changing try to breed more cottontails; Native rabbit nears endangered status as development reduces habitat" by David Abel | Globe Staff June 09, 2014
MASHPEE — The controlled burn last month on Cape Cod was part of a multimillion-dollar effort by federal and state agencies to rebuild the dwindling habitat of the New England cottontail, which lives in the dense bramble found in new forest growth.
Now HOW does THAT HELP with GLOBAL WARMING?
*******************
The rabbit, which has perky ears and a tail that looks like a puff of cotton, is the only animal from New England that federal officials are now considering as a candidate for the nation’s list of endangered species.
So what land does the federal government want to seize? We just saw this in Nevada!
To avoid granting that rare designation (the protection provided by endangered status would create an expensive regulatory burden for developers and the government) federal and state officials have already spent $24 million and plan to spend tens of millions more to rebuild the population of the native rabbits, which for millennia inhabited the region in large numbers.
Look, I like the furry cute rabbits as much as anybody, but we are living in a nation that is pushing social service austerity while they spend millions on this?
How much food would $24 million buy for hungry Americans?
The expense is necessary, biologists say, because the rabbits play an important role in the ecosystem and represent the unique biodiversity of the region. The work to protect them also benefits scores of other animals who share the same habitat.
“If we allow the species to blink out, then it’s just a matter of time before we become concerned about another species,” said Anthony Tur, an endangered species biologist and director of the New England Cottontail Initiative, an effort by federal and state agencies to save the rabbit. “At some point, we have to draw the line. How many species should we be willing to lose before we do something about the problem? For the Endangered Species Act, the tolerance is zero.”
HOW ARROGANT!
See: George Carlin on The Environment
You can still hear him whispering in the trees!
No one knows precisely how many cottontails remain in New England but wildlife biologists believe they have vanished from Vermont and dwindled to several hundred elsewhere.
Oh, so this is ALL BASED on BULLSHIT, huh?
Those remaining live in patches of young forests spread like islands over a few thousand acres across New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. They used to be found in every part of Massachusetts but now live only in Eastern Cape Cod and parts of the Berkshires.
Unlike other rabbits, the native cottontails rely on the low-lying shrubs of young forests for food and protection from predators, such as raptors, owls, coyotes, and foxes. Much of the area’s remaining forests have matured and are no longer suitable habitats.
So it's basically nature taking its course, huh?
The at-risk rabbits haven’t adapted like the similar-looking, nonnative, and far more abundant Eastern cottontails. Those rabbits, brought to the region by trappers in the 19th century, flourished because they have better peripheral vision than the native bunnies, allowing them to hop to safety more quickly and thrive in less-forested areas.
With the right conditions, wildlife biologists say, they could repopulate quickly....
They f*** like rabbits from what I've heard.
They may also benefit from climate change, as warmer winters might mean more food, cover, and better camouflage....
Say what?
Perhaps the reduction in numbers is due to the record cold winters, 'eh?
That includes not only controlled burns, to spur the growth of shrubs, but also a captive breeding program at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence....
The controlled burns on Cape Cod should bear results within a year or two, officials said....
Notice how talk of drought and wildfires has receded from my pos paper?
--more--"
Time to hop along to something else.
