… full-on assault against protections …

Quote of the Day — 7 March 2011

” … What we have seen most recently is folks just basically taking the debate over the budget and the financial situation and using it as cover to attack core environmental protections … They are using the budget process as a costume to hide what they are doing – which is a full-on assault against our fundamental environmental protections. … “

— Joe Mendelson, director of global warming policy at the National Wildlife Federation
— quoted by Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
— “Republicans attack Obama’s environmental protection from all sides
guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/04/republicans-attack-obamas-environmental-protection
www.guardian.co.uk

Rear Admiral David Titley, USN

TEDxPentagon – Rear Admiral David Titley, USN – Climate Change and National Security

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7udNMqRmqV8

… power will not be intimidated …

Quote of the Day — 4 March 2011

What the world wanted to see was how you would react. And you have reacted with joy and resolve. You’ve shown that your power will not be intimidated by any power that they have, and that’s the most important thing that’s happened here this week.

Because everything that happened inside that building tried to convince me that I was alone and that I was weak. They tried to convince me that I was like a little finger out there on my own that could easily be broken. And all of you out here were the reminder for all of us that I wasn’t just a finger all alone in there, but that I was connected to hand with many fingers that could be united together as one fist, and that that fist could not be broken by the power that they have in there.

That fist is not a symbol of violence. That fist is a symbol that we will not be mislead into thinking that we are alone. We will not be lied to and told that we are weak. We will not be divided and we will not back down. That fist is a symbol that we are connected and that we are powerful. It’s a symbol that we hold true to our vision of a healthy and just world and that we are building the self empowering movement to make it happen. All those authorities in there wanted me to think like a finger but are children are calling to us to think like a fist.

And we know that now I’ll have to go prison, we know that now that is the reality. But that’s just the job that I have to do. That’s the role that I face. Many before me have gone to jail for justice and if we are going to achieve our vision many after me will have to join me as well.

No one ever told us that this battle would be easy. No one ever told us that we wouldn’t have to make sacrifices. We knew that when we started this fight.

Every wave on the ocean that has ever risen up and refused to lay back down has been dashed on the shore, but it is the very purpose of a wave to rise up, because once it rises up above the horizon it finally has the perspective to see that it’s not just a wave, that it’s a part of a mighty ocean. And the sharpest rock on the wildest shore can never break that ocean apart, they can never wear that ocean down, because it’s the ocean that shapes the shore.

That’s what we’re starting to do here today. That’s what we’re starting to do here this week. With wave after wave after wave crashing against that shore, we shape it to our vision. Thank you all for being a part of that.

— Tim DeChristopher
— “Tim DeChristopher’s Speech After Guilty Verdict for Climate Civil Disobedience
— Huffington Post

www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-henn/tim-dechristophers-speech_b_831156.html
www.huffingtonpost.com

… Gone, even: ‘needs more study.’ …

Quote of the Day — 24 February 2011

” Over the weekend, the U.S. House of Representatives voted along partisan lines in favor of an amendment sponsored by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri (pictured at left) to cut funding for the Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). When I flagged this incredible news on my Discover blog, the clean energy activist Michael Noble tweeted back: “Gone, even that old refrain: ‘needs more study.'”

The more I think about it, the more profound that little remark becomes.

Time was when I, and many others tracking and critiquing the climate “skeptics,” would linger on their manufacture of uncertainty, their sowing and merchandising of doubt. “Doubt is our product,” as the infamous tobacco memo put it.

Up through “Climategate” and the ensuing attacks on the IPCC over matters like the Himalayan glaciers blunder, the resistance to climate science really was well captured by this broad strategy. The central theme was that there was a body of science being produced by experts, and those who didn’t like its findings were problematizing, nitpicking, fighting around the edges while ignoring the big picture. …

… But that’s not really what you see out there anymore. A decision to defund the IPCC, rather than attack or criticize it, doesn’t bespeak a strategy of doubt-mongering. It signals extreme certainty that one is right, that we don’t even need to consider (skeptically or otherwise) any more new results from climate scientists. … ”

— Chris Mooney
— “The Denialists Progress: From Doubt-Mongering to Certainty
DeSmogBlog.com

www.desmogblog.com/denialists-progress-doubt-mongering-certainty
www.desmogblog.com