What Do Donald Trump, The Sightline Institute, Sierra Club of Washington and Columbia River Keeper Have in Common?

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like_trumpThey All Want You to Ignore Recent Studies on Climate Change…

An important new study on Climate Change was released last week by multiple agencies of the Federal Government. The study concludes, again, that the world’s temperatures are rising and that human activity is a significant cause. 

So, did President Donald Trump embrace the science? The newly released study?

Nope. 

“I don’t believe it.” was all he said. He placed his uninformed opinion above the competent researchers that produced the report. 

This nonsense only happens on the Right, right? Wrong. Here in Washington State, environmental activists are doing the same thing.

Two weeks ago, an independent and thorough study was released that shows building a proposed methanol plant in Kalama, Washington will reduce Global Greenhouse Gases by as much as is produced by 89% of all private cars on Washington State Roads.

The response from The Sightline Institute, Sierra Club Washington and The Columbia River keepers? 

“Ignore the study!” (See here, for one example)

Wow. We on the Left can be as daft as the Right.

Some Background…

In September 2016, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement was released for a Methanol Production Plant proposed to be built in Kalama. The report made claims that building the plant would have net-positive effects on Global Greenhouse Gases (GHG). Specifically, that by building this plant & shipping methanol to China, that methanol would replace coal in Chinese production processes, resulting in a significant reduction of GHG. Or said more succinctly, using methanol for producing products in China is significantly cleaner than the coal that China currently uses.

More Research!!!

Activists, however, were not satisfied that the Draft Environmental Impact Statement provided enough research into the overall affects of building the plant. 

Specifically, opponents, including Sightline Institute and Columbia River Keepers, wanted the State to consider not only the impacts of building the plant within Washington State, they wanted a more thorough study on both the upstream (the GHG that is produced in fracking the natural gas that the Kalama Plant would use) and the downstream (the GHG produced in transporting and burning the methanol in China).

Fair enough. I agree with them! We need to understand the entire lifecycle of the projects we build. 

To that end, the Shoreline Hearings Board put the project permits on hold, and in May of this year, Superior Court Judge Stephen Warning (that name!) ordered exactly that, saying that the environmental review was inadequate & that a full lifecycle analysis had to be done.

Chop! Chop!

Behold! A Study!

So what happened? Well…as the Hearings Board, the Judge (Warning!), and environmentalists asked, a study WAS done. And not a small study, but a comprehensive cradle-to-grave lifecycle analysis of the entire project. 

In other words, the opponents got exactly what they asked for…and guess what? The study answered and refuted not some, but most of their concerns.

The study concluded not only that building the plant would reduce the Global Greenhouse Gases by a little…it would reduce them by a lot! 

Building the methanol plant at Kalama, according to the commissioned study, will reduce GHG by 11.5 million metric tons per year. That’s just a number…so how much is 11.5 million metric tons? It’s the equivalent of removing 89% of all privately owned cars from Washington State Roads.

Think how much work we do to try to improve transportation…and then realize that in one act, we could remove 89% of the negative impact of those cars. Now.

Environmentalists Are Satisfied! Right? Right?

The critics raised serious and important questions that needed to be answered. And they won! They forced the independent study! And the most important questions they were asking have now been answered.

You’d expect them to be satisfied, to move from being skeptics to supporters, right? After all, this project represents the single-largest reduction of GHG that Washington State will have ever undertaken. That’s a win! Right?

In my 25 years in political activism, I’ve learned one important truth: activists are rarely happy.

Many are so identified with their opposition to a thing that they can’t recognize when they’ve won an important battle. And that’s what has happened here. Sightline, The Sierra Club and the Columbia River Keepers won an important battle. And they’re still not happy.

Trump Wants Coal. Environmentalists Want Coal Too?

Trump has been busy trying to prop-up and revive the coal industry. And here again, we find a parallel with Sightline, Sierra Club and Columbia River Keepers.

These enviros are screaming “Fracked Gas!” as though they are telling you the whole story. They are not. Their complaints are short-sighted and disingenuous. Why? Because “fracked gas!” is only one side of the equation. The other side? Dirtier Coal.

By opposing the plant in Kalama, these environmentalists are propping up the coal industry in China. They are arguing that instead of taking this opportunity to displace coal, we should maintain the status quo. Do nothing. Allow China to simply proceed as normal. In other words, burn more and more coal.

The methanol produced in Kalama will replace a much dirtier fuel. So while we can all agree that fracked natural gas and fossil fuels are not a long-term solution to climate change, we should also be able to agree that taking strong steps to reduce the dirtiest sources of pollution should be a top priority. The methanol plant at Kalama does exactly that. In a big way.

But, don’t just take my word for it

Read the report!

The Measure of a Market

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Here’s my answer: a well functioning market will distribute wealth (or income) in the pattern of a bell curve.

18402695_10155201378451678_1092038054711139476_nMarkets are artificial constructs. The only way to build a productive market is to determine the desired outcome and adjust market regulation along the way.

The problem in the United States is that we’ve placed all value in the fantasy of a “free” market. There are two problems here:

  1. There is no such thing as a free market; all markets are constructs.
  2. The solution can never be pre-determined. Values have to be determined and outcomes measured against those values.

We have no idea what a successful market should look like. I’ve asked the following question of several economists and mostly received blank stares: “How do you know if a market is working?” It usually then moves to a discussion of jobs and unemployment numbers. But jobs aren’t the desired product of an economy, the desired product is wealth or income. Jobs can be artificially inflated: cut all jobs in half and you’ve just doubled employment.

The answer to the question (is the market working?) should be the core value of any economy. That seemingly few Americans even understand the question, let alone have a coherent answer, is a problem.

Here’s my answer: a well functioning market will distribute wealth (or income) in the pattern of a bell curve.

Is the market working? Simply overlay the graph of current wealth distribution (b) with a bell curve (a), and you get a visual representation of how well the market is functioning.

The degree to which the actual curve and the bell curve differ shows you exactly how off the market is; or said differently: B is a result of a poorly constructed market. B is NOT the result of harder working wealthy people.

I first developed these ideas here: Makers and Takers

The Bible is the Original Fake News Site

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The Buried Lede: “This will be unpopular: The Bible and the Koran and the like are the original “fake news” sources.”

biblefakenewsFew would have predicted that the internet, open access to information, might lead to the demise of humanity.

“Facts” are extremely complex things; to understand that is to begin to think about philosophy and theories of mind.

The vast majority of advances in knowledge are going to tech. And tech can only build tools, it can’t navigate ethics and meaning and justice.

And despite what the tech focused world says, or the religious focused world, there can be expertise in things like ethics, meaning and justice. In law and economics and statecraft. Those things can be studied, understood, improved.

We’ve assumed that religion would fill that role; but religion is dead, it isn’t growing. And the very inability we have to point out errors in religion, the rewards we give out to bad thinking by labeling it a “Right” has, in my estimation, set the foundation for a world where “facts” can be anything you choose.

And lest I pick solely on religion, the same holds true in any communally reinforced grouping of ideas. Progressivism, Conservatism, Socialism, Energy Healers, Reiki, etc.

If the very foundations of existence can’t be questioned, if we must accept as valid all beliefs, if we are unwilling to point out bad thinking in the core beliefs of individuals, is it any surprise that we now have a population, Right, Left and Center, who are woefully unskilled at detecting bullshit? Both from others, but more importantly from self?

This will be unpopular: the Bible and the Koran and the like are the original “fake news” sources. But we don’t call it out, and therefore, the vast majority of humanity’s foundation of knowledge is based in fake news.

So, tech built the internet which disseminates vast quantities of information, but humanity doesn’t yet understand the foundational issues of knowledge. Opinion isn’t knowledge. Belief isn’t knowledge. But information is now in the hands of everyone, and everyone believes they are right, that they have knowledge. But knowledge, facts, truth…these are complex topics.

The idea that knowledge acquisition isn’t considered a skill, that it’s simply thought of as the discovery of new information, freely available to any and all, and that the opinions of any and all have merit, has brought natural human division to new depths. We now have burger flippers and hairstylists and Lawyers who think they are experts in global trade and economics and politics and race-relations, and they are driving the world. Into a ditch.

The internet brings this all together in a mirror image of the primordial soup from which we arose, into which we now descend.

Rise of Berniecrats, Death of Democrats, Ergo, Death of America

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IMG_7276The Democratic Party is being severely weakened, and will be unable to mount any serious challenge to the Trump wing of the US.

Bernie Sanders and his supporters will prove to be the worst thing to happen to the Left in decades. And his followers, who have very little understanding of realpolitik, do not have anywhere near enough support to implement their flawed ideology; but they have enough to hamstring the unity needed to disrupt any serious effort push back on the Right.

Right now, the DNC, which has much less power than Berniecrats have been lead to believe, have created a “Unity” committee, which will be formed with Clinton appointing 9 members, and Bernie Sanders appointing 7 members.

Think about this: Bernie Sanders still refuses to identify as and commit to being a Democrat, and yet he’s being given huge power to shape the party. And the Berniecrats, who haven’t won any political race of any significance, fancy themselves as experts on how to take back the Country.

Remember the platform committee? Bernie put Cornell West on that committee; he who promptly endorsed Jill Stein after the effort.

The Berniecrats are toxic, ill informed, and frankly, immoral (go research their treatment of Delores Huerta in the Nevada primary caucus to deflate any notion of the movement’s moral superiority). The net result of this is that they will only have enough power to kill the Democratic Party; not enough to kill Trump.

And that has the potential to kill America.

Jean Baudrillard, Postmodernism and The Wiz

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baudrilaardwizWherein reading the postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard causes recall the sage words of The Wiz:

“Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle.” — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

‘Living here, in this brand new world
Might be a fantasy
But it taught me to love
So it’s real, real to me”

— “Home” from The Wiz

Note: Stephanie Mills is preferred over Diana Ross

Brokeback Families…

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family treeI‘ve heard several comments by conservatives, seemingly unable to directly criticize the love story that exists in the movie Brokeback Mountain, railing about the injustice of how these two men treat their undeserving wives. The pain caused to Michelle William’s character (Alma) is unmistakable, and many conservatives point the finger at Heath Ledger’s character (Ennis), and by inference, indict the entire gay community for the harm they’ve caused to the broken families they leave behind.

This, as I read between the lines, is another attempt to demonize the gay community, to blame them for the problems that exist when their relationships fall apart. The criticism isn’t without some merit, and therefore, can’t easily be dismissed. The irony, however, is that equal criticism should be aimed directly at the conservative community which has worked to demonize and dehumanize gay individuals, making it difficult for them to understand their own sexuality, and ignorantly promoting the idea that if you just act straight, you will be straight. Read more

Religion and Meaning

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As science continues to erode the viable realm of religion, apologists for religion seem to cling to the life-vest of “meaning” as the last stand for the value of religion.

In other words, religionists claim that science is unable to answer the “why’s” of an issue (which, I think is a tenuous claim, but which I’ll put on hold for now), and that these questions are best left in the hands of religion.

OK. If this is the case, then let’s discuss it directly. This posting is meant to solicit responses and ideas.

Can anyone give me some examples of “why” answers that religion does well? If this is the realm in which religion excels, then let’s have a listing of those answers it provides.

Anyone?

On Determinism…

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The majority of humans will get caught into basic routines of social expectations; the brave may escape the monotony of scripted existence, the worship of the status quo.

My Articles of Faith

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NOTE: This is an old version of my values. There are two newer versions published here:

Life’s Purpose:

The primary purpose of my life is the pursuit of Joy.

Secondary to that is the pursuit of truth, by which I have faith that I’ll be better able to control the environment of my life, affording me greater opportunity to achieve my primary purpose.

My faith:

I have great faith in humanity. In sum, I see the world as a positive place, and am happy that I am a part of it. I believe that humanity is a positive force in this world.

It is my belief that all great human achievements are rooted entirely in the greatness of humankind. I do not look to sources external to humanity to explain or understand its value.

I have faith that humankind will continue to gain increased knowledge relative to the nature of our existence, the nature of nature, and the means by which we will gain increased power over nature to improve our lives. Science is generally the object of this faith.

I have faith in my ability to shape the contours of my life, as well as to contribute to the makeup of the communities of which I am a part.

I have faith in the ability of pluralistic democracies to provide the greatest foundation for the pursuit of joy. My faith is that through continued work and human capital, we can build a more perfect union. To this end, I am faithfully involved in the political process.

I have faith in the equality of humanity, that all should be equal and that all deserve rights which are endowed upon them naturally. All should have equal opportunity to create the shape and contour of their lives.

I don’t believe that the ends or goals of humanity are guaranteed; I believe in the real possibility of failure. I believe that we are in a race against time to avoid failure, and this motivates my faith.

My communities:
Individuals preside over communities, which are created to serve the needs of individuals. Though symbiotic, we must never elevate “community” to the ontological status of “individual;” they are fundamentally different things.

My first and most important communal tie is to my wife, Mary, and to my two children, Cien and Aris.

I am a member of the entire human family, whom I consider to be brothers and sisters.

Additional communities of which I am a part: family, friends, neighborhood, City, County, State, and Country.

I identify with the struggles of specific communities, such as the gay-lesbian community. I identify with the struggle for equality waged by women. I identify with the struggle for equality waged by the minority communities.

I don’t consider myself detached from the struggles faced by these communities, as I feel that fundamentally, the struggle for equality is a struggle faced by all of us. That my current demographic is at the top of the hill does not mean that it will always be so, and to that end, I work hard to ensure equality for all.