Hasta La Gadget!

The energy and climate waters, it appears, are finally getting safer for thoughtful conservatives to test and navigate. The complete shut-down of conservative dialogue about climate solutions which followed John McCain’s 2008 defeat (reinforced by the 2010 defeat of South Carolina Republican Bob Inglis over his climate leadership) appears to be softening. Indeed, libertarian and conservative intellectuals who opposed policy action on climate even during the 2000-2008 period when many Republican politicians looked for appropriately conservative climate solutions are now calling for such actions.

One bellwether event is the launch of a new libertarian think-tank, the Niskanen Center, focusing heavily on climate and energy and led by Jerry Taylor, who served for many years as the Cato Institute’s energy maven until he decided to strike out on his own pathway.

Taylor (a friend and colleague) never denied or debated climate science. He did argue against action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. His view was that a) climate change, while real, didn’t warrant the kind of action environmentalists were demanding b) if it turned out global warming required big solutions, those solutions would be anathema to conservatives c) those solutions would also be so expensive that they would be easy for conservatives to beat in the political arena.

Jerry has now changed is views. He believes, and is disseminating on the right, a new paradigm a) evidence on the risks of extreme climate change warrants, in purely market terms, much higher prices on GHG emissions as a market measure. b) Carbon taxes can be deployed as a solution with an acceptable risk that they become so bloated that they significantly increase the overall size and burden of government c) Public and elite sentiment for action has become so strong that if conservatives do not offer market based solutions, environmentalists will impose regulatory solutions because the politics has changed.

Taylor’s view – climate action is something conservatives should support – aligns him with an earlier libertarian who came around, Jonathan Adler of Case Western. (Adler, as late as 2000, was arguing that the only measures warranted to deal with climate were those which deregulated energy markets. But by 2008 he was searching for conservative solutions. Adler was preceded by Ronald Bailey, who in 2005 concluded that scientifically, the evidence strongly suggested greenhouse gas produced global warming.)

Niskanen Center has also posted a very intriguing poll done this spring of oil and gas industry insiders, showing that 75% of the industry believes that global warming is either very or somewhat serious, and 58% thought dealing with it should be a major government priority.

Taylor doesn’t cite it, but there is an additional major factor which may have caused a lot of people to shift their view on climate policy: in 1997 when Kyoto was passed, low carbon alternatives to fossil fuels were extraordinarily higher in cost. Now the cost difference between coal generated power and wind and solar is much smaller; in many markets renewables are cheaper. (And in the US natural gas is also impacting the economics of coal.) Electric vehicles are, on a lifetime basis, less costly than many conventional gasoline drive trains. And technologies to greatly increase the energy productivity of our economy have advanced by leaps and bounds. Any reasonable guess on the cost of efficiently decarbonizing our economy has dropped dramatically (even as climate science has made clear that the level of carbon cuts needed is much bigger.)

It’s been clear for many years to practitioners on both sides – if not the media – that the conservative clam-up on climate was not about the problem, but the solutions. When Taylor debated me in 1995 at the University of Wisconsin, he was blunt, “If climate warrants significant solutions, they will be global, majoritarian, and governmental – all the things the right hates.” At a Trans-Partisan Forum in Gold Lake Colorado in 2005 a group of very prominent conservative leaders, exposed to an early version of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, summarized their tribal faith as “the planet is robust, economic freedom is weak” and one participant conceded to me, “we are terrified that climate change solutions will feed the big government beast, Leviathan.” But there were still conservative voices with the strength to call for action, just as an insurance policy. Even Mike Huckabee joked in 2008, “if the Lord sends a flood, it’s our job to stack up the sand bags.” When McCain lost, shut. Now it seems to be, cautiously, sliding open again.

Taylor is not alone. The American Enterprise Institute back in 2012 conducted a series of secret dialogues about a carbon tax. When the secret leaked out, the National Journal savaged AEI, mockingly asking, “What are they thinking about?” Now AEI has set up a public set of forums, featuring a Democratic Congressman who has introduced a carbon tax bill. Inglis who has been toiling in the academic vineyards at George Mason University, is getting much more public traction for his work on a carbon tax. Jeb Bush, historically self-categorized as a climate skeptic, recently tentatively suggested that he might be worried about climate change.

This is big stuff – and not just for climate policy. The shut-down of dialogue on energy and climate which occurred after 2008 – in my view driven by Koch and fossil fuel money and wedge politics as opposed genuine conservative disbelief in climate science – was part of a larger disfunction in American politics. Instead of arguing about values, priorities and solutions, the right and left drifted into almost theological debates about reality. That’s not what our constitution was intended to accommodate, and our political system for the past five years has signally failed to operate effectively in this atmosphere. And as Taylor points out, neither conservatives nor liberals bring much intellectual heft to the question of precisely how atmospheric concentrations of different heat retaining gasses will influence the weather and climate – the rainfall over the next decade in California will not be influenced by my views – very different than Jerry’s – on the proper balance between community and individualism.

Let’s be clear. Taylor (or Inglis, or AEI) and I don’t agree on the right mix of energy and climate policy. And we probably never will – our values and political (not meteorological) assumptions vary too much. But perhaps we can now have public conversations out of which our differences might narrow – and some really bad ideas might at least be let go of by both sides. Galileo was not entirely right. But as long as the Inquisition intimidated believing Christians from entertaining and debating his ideas, the spots where he was wrong were never uncovered. That’s where we have been on climate. If I am reading the political weather correctly, and dialogue is about to resume, that is an altogether good thing, which will enable me to explain to Jerry Taylor why I think he is dead wrong on many topics – and vice versa.

And by the way – if I am right that one of the forces opening up dialogue is that, really, the cost of low carbon energy vs. fossil fuels is no longer a big deal – it does suggest that conservatives like Jerry were right in saying that as long as climate solutions meant significant sacrifices, democratic societies were unlikely to embrace them. The engineers and entrepreneurs changed that reality – not the atmospheric modellers.

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I’ve been marching for as long as I can remember but I’m not sure that anything fully prepared me for the literal journey that I experienced last week alongside members of Justice League NYC, an initiative of Harry Belafonte’s organization The Gathering for Justice as we walked from New York City to Washington, DC. We came together as a cross-generational coalition inspired by the wisdom of our elders and the passion of our youth.

Alongside Executive Director of the Gathering for Justice Carmen Perez, and my fellow Co-Chair of the march Linda Sarsour, I joined nearly 100 Justice Champions on the march to demand accountability to police violence and an end to mass incarceration and racial profiling. The journey spanned 5 states and over 250 miles and focused on delivering a Justice Package to Congress highlighting three pieces of legislation; The Stop Militarization of Law Enforcement Act, The Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act and The End Racial Profiling Act. With every step we knew that we were moving closer to presenting our demands to the legislators who could respond to a national crisis with a national solution by making these bills law.

Over the course of a week we limped and ran, marching through rain or shine, and found ourselves approached with both solidarity and vitriol by the cars who passed our caravan on the highways. Before our time in DC was over and before any aches we’d developed after days of walking could begin to heal, Congressman John Conyers had reintroduced The End Racial Profiling Act at a press conference we were honored to attend.

People often remark on the futility of marching but I was raised by a family who marched steadfast and often. My parents were founding members of Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and I grew up attending rallies and protests. When I was 15 years-old, I became a staff member of National Action Network and over a decade later I became the Executive Director of the organization, an opportunity which afforded me with many opportunities to serve and grow.

In my youth I didn’t always understand the complexities of why we marched but I felt the great love that motivated all those who participated. It was a love of self and each other that turned the dark nights into mornings, and eased the painful recognition that marching was mandatory. Marching was an act of survival and the literal act of placing one foot in front of the other assured us of progress even when circumstances seemed bleak.

Today, in my work with Justice League NYC I carry those lessons with me and while our aims were grounded in policy, as we marched, we found the reality of our times reflected back to us in the news of the day. Days before we left on our journey Walter Scott was gunned down by police in South Carolina and shot eight times with no crime beyond a broken tail light to explain his murder. As we marched, a “Not Guilty” verdict was returned to the police officer who shot and killed Rekia Boyd in Chicago. While we marched through Baltimore, we heard the devastating news that Freddie Gray had died. All we know of his death is that he entered a police van seemingly injured, and emerged from it in a coma. The community in Baltimore is currently demanding answers, but the truth is there is no solace beyond what we have unquestionably come to know; black lives have yet to matter in this country in a way that warrants equal protection and absolute justice under the law.

We march to commit to the seemingly endless task of advocating on behalf of the humanity of our people. The crisis of police killings can no longer be swept under the rug. We march with the knowledge that we deserve better than this, and the hope that our children will age into a world better than this, because we marched.

By Tamika D. Mallory, March2Justice Co-Chair

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Baltimore residents were out in force on Tuesday, cleaning up their city and contributing a new round of diplomatic discourse to a tense debate that had boiled over the night before in violent clashes, riots and looting.

While many television stations covered the turmoil breathlessly on Monday night with wall-to-wall images of raging fires, ransacked stores and other destruction, they dedicated much less time to the underlying causes of the unrest. Instead of discussing the crushing poverty, lack of opportunity and patterns of controversial police behavior in the neighborhoods hit most heavily by the rioting, news anchors collectively clutched their pearls, wondering aloud how such bad things could happen in Charm City.

It was a question begging for an honest answer, but instead, viewers got a scolding Wolf Blitzer on CNN, looking at the mayhem and asking, “Where are the police?”

Those would be the same police who have revealed no new information about the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died April 19, a week after suffering a fatal spinal cord injury while in their custody.

With things significantly calmer on Tuesday, residents of Baltimore were able to offer vital context to the debate being covered by the hordes of reporters who had descended upon their city. Some of their insight from Monday night could have improved network coverage considerably.

Above, watch a mashup of the best interviews with residents of Baltimore.

Video produced by Amber Ferguson.

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I’m in love with a bully. It’s true. I think it’s safe to say that most people assume she is mean-spirited and dangerous, but they don’t see the side of her that I do. I’ve often been asked why I let her into my life to begin with, seeing as how she makes it more difficult for me to find a place to live. She eats only expensive food and people even move to the other side of the street when they see us walking together. People assume too much about us.

Nahla, my beautiful pit bull rescue, has taught me more about love, happiness, and loyalty in the past year than my husband ever did. She is fiercely kind, comforting, and forgiving — everything I could ever want in a spouse. She touches places in my heart that I was sure I had boarded up and abandoned long ago. We laugh together in the good times, and we cry together (well actually I cry, and she licks my face) during the bad times.

I think I grieved more in the three hours I thought I was going to lose her because of a snake bite than I did for my husband when he left. Actually, my husband was the one who told me, “we’ll have to put her down because it is going to cost too much to save her.” (Can you believe he actually said that?!) Thankfully, the vet saved her life, and I got sense enough to kick him to the curb a few short months later. It is kind of ironic to think I almost lost the one who loves me most because of the one who loved me least.

My point in all of this is simply to say that love isn’t what I thought it was when I got married. It isn’t something only seen on date night with twelve red roses. It isn’t something that can be confined to a ring, a white dress and a cake. Language, race, political views, gender and even species don’t matter to love. The truest, realest love I have ever known comes from someone who can’t even utter the words, “I love you.” She tells me with good-morning kisses and good-night snuggles. She saw me at my worst, broken and alone, literally lying on the floor of my bathroom and she still loved me. She loves me so much that she brought me her favorite toy and laid beside me on the cold floor. This gesture, among many others, gave me the strength to love and trust again. She uncovers daily the beautiful pieces of me that I had lost in my marriage and she sets them free.

Even as I’m writing this she has made her way over to rest her head on my knee to remind me that I’m never alone. She is the most beautiful gift and I vow to always cherish her — down to the very last chewed up shoe.

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HONOLULU (AP) — A shark killed a 65-year-old woman in an attack off the shore of Maui on Wednesday, officials said.

Maui Fire Department said in a statement that the unresponsive woman was found by snorkelers about 200 yards from shore and was taken to the beach at a popular surfing spot. Paramedics attempted lifesaving efforts but were unsuccessful.

Injuries on the victim’s torso suggest she was attacked by a shark, fire officials said in the statement.

The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources released a statement saying the attack occurred in the Kanahena Cove area of Ahihi-Kinau Natural Area Reserve on Maui.

Kekoa Kaluhiwa, first deputy director of state Department of Land and Natural Resources, said at a news conference in Honolulu that the incident is being investigated. He said staff would be posting additional signage along the coast.

“Our condolence goes out to the family of the victim,” he said.

Crews cleared the water using jet skis, and the Department of Land and Natural Resources closed the area to swimmers, divers and other ocean activities. The area will be closed until at least noon Thursday, when officials will assess the scene and decide if it is safe to reopen.

There are no reported witnesses of the shark attack, which was the first fatal encounter of the year in Hawaii.

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