• The Pruitt Emails: E.P.A. Chief Was Arm in Arm With Industry
    26 replies, posted
[quote] WASHINGTON — During his tenure as attorney general of Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt, now the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, closely coordinated with major oil and gas producers, electric utilities and political groups with ties to the libertarian billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch to roll back environmental regulations, according to over 6,000 pages of emails made public on Wednesday. The publication of the correspondence comes just days after Mr. Pruitt was sworn in to run the E.P.A., which is charged with reining in pollution and regulating public health. “Thank you to your respective bosses and all they are doing to push back against President Obama’s EPA and its axis with liberal environmental groups to increase energy costs for Oklahomans and American families across the states,” said one email sent to Mr. Pruitt and an Oklahoma congressman in August 2013 by Matt Ball, an executive at Americans for Prosperity. That nonprofit group is funded in part by the Kochs, the Kansas business executives who spent much of the last decade combating federal regulations, particularly in the energy sector. “You both work for true champions of freedom and liberty!” the note said. Mr. Pruitt has been among the most contentious of President Trump’s cabinet nominees. Environmental groups, Democrats in Congress and even current E.P.A. employees have protested his ties to energy companies, his efforts to block and weaken major environmental rules, and his skepticism of the central mission of the federal agency he now leads. An Oklahoma judge ordered the release of the emails in response to a lawsuit by the Center for Media and Democracy, a liberal watchdog group. Many of the emails are copies of documents previously provided in 2014 to The New York Times, which examined Mr. Pruitt’s interaction with energy industry players that his office also helps regulate. [/Quote] [URL="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/us/politics/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency.html?referer="]https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/us/politics/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency.html?referer=[/URL]
Well, I'm glad we're at least going to try to kill the planet and ourselves as fast as possible instead of prolonging the suffering through only half-assed attempts to completely fuck everything up in the name of money..
Really? I'm not.
[QUOTE=mcharest;51859404]Really? I'm not.[/QUOTE] If you're going to do something, do it right. Don't half-ass it. :v:
I'm glad the decisions of a tiny group of people is allowed to literally kill off the human species to earn a bit of money. Jesus, the US is rapidly descending towards being as bad, if not worse, than your average third-world country, fucking hell.
[QUOTE=Spetsnaz95;51859460]I'm glad the decisions of a tiny group of people is allowed to literally kill off the human species to earn a bit of money. Jesus, the US is rapidly descending towards being as bad, if not worse, than your average third-world country, fucking hell.[/QUOTE] its going to be bad but it isn't going to kill of humanity
[QUOTE=Psychokitten;51859411]If you're going to do something, do it right. Don't half-ass it. :v:[/QUOTE] Don't half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.
[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;51859509]its going to be bad but it isn't going to kill of humanity[/QUOTE] Humans are so adaptable we're sort of extinction-proof, at least as far as the next couple centuries are concerned, but societal collapse due to climate change is quite possible.
[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;51859509]its going to be bad but it isn't going to kill of humanity[/QUOTE] It really could be, though. Maybe not all of humanity, but the vast, [I]vast[/I] majority of it. Let's say it warms just enough to release the fucktons of methane trapped in permafrost, further accelerating the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Let's say we reach that point - global weather patterns, which we've relied on for thousands of years just to feed us, will drastically change. Like, [I]no more gulf stream[/I] and Europe effectively becomes coastal Canada. There would be no way to effectively predict these changes, and even if we could, how do you save the millions of pounds of crops that feed humanity? Agricultural collapse is the threat. If there's a massive drought across the central US, guess what - we only import 19% of our food. If we see a sustained drought in the plains, US food production shits the bed and we start having to come to terms with our excess and waste. That sounds good, right? Until it lasts even longer. Until we can't predict weather patterns and mass agriculture starts to suffer. You can make things resistant to pests - you can't make them resistant to no water. But that's probably the most mild thing. Wealthy nations could probably survive that through rapid and organized use of technology, even while poor ones slowly starve to death. Next up, global ocean anoxia, where massive parts of the ocean just run out of oxygen and the global underwater ecosystem starts falling apart. We're already overfishing at an absurd level - with widespread and common anoxic events, we'd have multiple mass extinctions. In the past, they've already caused numerous mass extinctions. We already have near-permanent anoxic "dead zones" off Chesapeake Bay and the coast of Louisiana. More carbon dioxide and heat, the more problems we'll have hear - and a collapse of oceanic ecosystems would [I]further[/I] cripple access to food. And then, yeah, natural disasters becoming more common, widespread, and unpredictable due to changing wind and ocean currents. We're already seeing some of that. Sea level rise threatening certain poorer countries, especially island nations. Already seeing that. But these are all on a very long timeline. The problem isn't "oh my god we're all going to die in 30 years," it's "we've reached a point where we literally cannot stop this from accelerating." In a couple hundred years, we'll see more unpredictable weather patterns, more difficulty with food production. In a couple thousand, humanity would be at huge risk. We're basically a three-year-old eating lead paint and huffing asbestos and saying "well when he's grown up he won't do that and they'll have the cure to cancer then so it's okay."
[QUOTE=mcharest;51859404]Really? I'm not.[/QUOTE] I was being facetious.
[QUOTE]with ties to the libertarian billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch [/QUOTE] why havent these two old farts not died yet?
[QUOTE=Spetsnaz95;51859460]I'm glad the decisions of a tiny group of people is allowed to literally kill off the human species to earn a bit of money. Jesus, the US is rapidly descending towards being as bad, if not worse, than your average third-world country, fucking hell.[/QUOTE] Exploiting natural resources and killing the planet is what first world nations do best. Thanks Industrial Revolution!
[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;51859509]its going to be bad but it isn't going to kill of humanity[/QUOTE] This mindset is the worst Enough of us will die it will be bad The survivors would be the richest of the rich in their shelters. That's not okay, that's not what we should be complacent to.
We're looking at a global extinction event and the president/his cabinet are just chugging right along into oblivion because if you disagree with them you're just a liberal democrat hippie What a fucking world Second amendment activation when
[QUOTE=.Isak.;51859610]It really could be, though. Maybe not all of humanity, but the vast, [I]vast[/I] majority of it. Let's say it warms just enough to release the fucktons of methane trapped in permafrost, further accelerating the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Let's say we reach that point - global weather patterns, which we've relied on for thousands of years just to feed us, will drastically change. Like, [I]no more gulf stream[/I] and Europe effectively becomes coastal Canada. There would be no way to effectively predict these changes, and even if we could, how do you save the millions of pounds of crops that feed humanity? Agricultural collapse is the threat. If there's a massive drought across the central US, guess what - we only import 19% of our food. If we see a sustained drought in the plains, US food production shits the bed and we start having to come to terms with our excess and waste. That sounds good, right? Until it lasts even longer. Until we can't predict weather patterns and mass agriculture starts to suffer. You can make things resistant to pests - you can't make them resistant to no water. But that's probably the most mild thing. Wealthy nations could probably survive that through rapid and organized use of technology, even while poor ones slowly starve to death. Next up, global ocean anoxia, where massive parts of the ocean just run out of oxygen and the global underwater ecosystem starts falling apart. We're already overfishing at an absurd level - with widespread and common anoxic events, we'd have multiple mass extinctions. In the past, they've already caused numerous mass extinctions. We already have near-permanent anoxic "dead zones" off Chesapeake Bay and the coast of Louisiana. More carbon dioxide and heat, the more problems we'll have hear - and a collapse of oceanic ecosystems would [I]further[/I] cripple access to food. And then, yeah, natural disasters becoming more common, widespread, and unpredictable due to changing wind and ocean currents. We're already seeing some of that. Sea level rise threatening certain poorer countries, especially island nations. Already seeing that. But these are all on a very long timeline. The problem isn't "oh my god we're all going to die in 30 years," it's "we've reached a point where we literally cannot stop this from accelerating." In a couple hundred years, we'll see more unpredictable weather patterns, more difficulty with food production. In a couple thousand, humanity would be at huge risk. We're basically a three-year-old eating lead paint and huffing asbestos and saying "well when he's grown up he won't do that and they'll have the cure to cancer then so it's okay."[/QUOTE] you're absolutely right that it will be the most devastating thing our species has ever been up against, and we will see most of the population quickly killed off in some parts of the world and slowly starved off in others, but the species itself will continue to survive even if the world it survives in looks more like mars than earth. [editline]22nd February 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=HumanAbyss;51859851]This mindset is the worst Enough of us will die it will be bad The survivors would be the richest of the rich in their shelters. That's not okay, that's not what we should be complacent to.[/QUOTE] i've personally given up hope on reversing the effects of what we've wrought, i think we should be focusing now on preparing for the effects. i have previously and still do advocate for the summary execution of those who have brought us to this as traitors to humanity. i don't really see it as complacency, though, to say "the species isn't going to die off", rather a statement of prediction. i mean, i guess i can see how, others might say "eh we're not all going to die so might as well not do anything about it" but that was not my intention
[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;51859509]its going to be bad but it isn't going to kill of humanity[/QUOTE] We're sure as hell going to see potentially billions die to sea levels putting current coastlines under water, regions becoming inhospitable, and more. [img_thumb]https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*R90wx8F_rlQNeDvV.jpg[/img_thumb] National Geographic map showing the possible future. [url]https://thinkprogress.org/national-geographic-maps-our-coastline-after-we-melt-all-earths-ice-raising-seas-over-200-feet-2f52cfe02f02#.bv9tp544s[/url]
i think humans would be able to survive a total global thermonuclear war but that doesn't mean i don't care if it happens or think it wouldn't be absolutely devastating and extremely difficult to survive
[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;51859585]Humans are so adaptable we're sort of extinction-proof, at least as far as the next couple centuries are concerned, but societal collapse due to climate change is quite possible.[/QUOTE] No we aren't.
[QUOTE=BANNED USER;51859821]Exploiting natural resources and killing the planet is what first world nations do best. Thanks Industrial Revolution![/QUOTE] Don't act as if the problem is endemic to "developed" countries. In nations that are still developing, practices such as "slash and burn" are a massive issue.
[QUOTE=TFA;51859996]Don't act as if the problem is endemic to "developed" countries.[/QUOTE] So you're just assuming that I believe only first world countries pollute or destroy the planet? How the hell did you come to that conclusion? I make a direct response to spetsnaz's comment, and all of the sudden I'm oblivious to the actions of others?
[QUOTE=TFA;51859996]Don't act as if the problem is endemic to "developed" countries. In nations that are still developing, practices such as "slash and burn" are a massive issue.[/QUOTE] sure but Canadian Oil sands is the worst polluter per capita in the world, we're not shutting that shit down because we don't really care in the west. No one really cares.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;51860704]sure but Canadian Oil sands is the worst polluter per capita in the world, we're not shutting that shit down because we don't really care in the west. No one really cares.[/QUOTE] Well, I mean, we can thank Prime Minister Oil and Ugly Sweatervests for that, and Trudeau can't exactly just slam the door on everything cold-turkey because it'd wreck the prairie economy after it spent a decade making sure its eggs were in one basket. Even if there was an intense political mandate from the rest of the country, it can't be as simple as that without finding something else for those families to do, and none of that moves quickly enough.
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;51860797]Well, I mean, we can thank Prime Minister Oil and Ugly Sweatervests for that, and Trudeau can't exactly just slam the door on everything cold-turkey because it'd wreck the prairie economy after it spent a decade making sure its eggs were in one basket. Even if there was an intense political mandate from the rest of the country, it can't be as simple as that without finding something else for those families to do, and none of that moves quickly enough.[/QUOTE] I get that I'm not upset nothing's happening I'm just sure that well reasoned and rationed arguments like yours while right are dooming us. Yeah it's true there's many economic concerns to weigh out here but the inevitable truth is my kids and your kids won't know a world without these effects because of well intentioned inaction.
[QUOTE=.Isak.;51859610]It really could be, though. Maybe not all of humanity, but the vast, [I]vast[/I] majority of it. Let's say it warms just enough to release the fucktons of methane trapped in permafrost, further accelerating the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Let's say we reach that point - global weather patterns, which we've relied on for thousands of years just to feed us, will drastically change. Like, [I]no more gulf stream[/I] and Europe effectively becomes coastal Canada. There would be no way to effectively predict these changes, and even if we could, how do you save the millions of pounds of crops that feed humanity? Agricultural collapse is the threat. If there's a massive drought across the central US, guess what - we only import 19% of our food. If we see a sustained drought in the plains, US food production shits the bed and we start having to come to terms with our excess and waste. That sounds good, right? Until it lasts even longer. Until we can't predict weather patterns and mass agriculture starts to suffer. You can make things resistant to pests - you can't make them resistant to no water. But that's probably the most mild thing. Wealthy nations could probably survive that through rapid and organized use of technology, even while poor ones slowly starve to death. Next up, global ocean anoxia, where massive parts of the ocean just run out of oxygen and the global underwater ecosystem starts falling apart. We're already overfishing at an absurd level - with widespread and common anoxic events, we'd have multiple mass extinctions. In the past, they've already caused numerous mass extinctions. We already have near-permanent anoxic "dead zones" off Chesapeake Bay and the coast of Louisiana. More carbon dioxide and heat, the more problems we'll have hear - and a collapse of oceanic ecosystems would [I]further[/I] cripple access to food. And then, yeah, natural disasters becoming more common, widespread, and unpredictable due to changing wind and ocean currents. We're already seeing some of that. Sea level rise threatening certain poorer countries, especially island nations. Already seeing that. But these are all on a very long timeline. The problem isn't "oh my god we're all going to die in 30 years," it's "we've reached a point where we literally cannot stop this from accelerating." In a couple hundred years, we'll see more unpredictable weather patterns, more difficulty with food production. In a couple thousand, humanity would be at huge risk. We're basically a three-year-old eating lead paint and huffing asbestos and saying "well when he's grown up he won't do that and they'll have the cure to cancer then so it's okay."[/QUOTE] I think I just lost the will to live. Holy fuck this is depressing.
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;51859947]We're sure as hell going to see potentially billions die to sea levels putting current coastlines under water, regions becoming inhospitable, and more. [/QUOTE] On the other hand, a terrifying prospect for humanity. On the other, no more Florida. We should really consider all options right now.
[QUOTE=Mr. Sarcastic;51862058]I think I just lost the will to live. Holy fuck this is depressing.[/QUOTE] Yeah imagine having thought about that and similar things for the last few years and then constantly being told by the right wing, the largest corporations, the governments and the ignorant leaders of said governments that it's all wrong or un-true it's utterly pointless to think that our lives will be similar to that of our parents. They will not be. That's just our reality.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;51862228]Yeah imagine having thought about that and similar things for the last few years and then constantly being told by the right wing, the largest corporations, the governments and the ignorant leaders of said governments that it's all wrong or un-true it's utterly pointless to think that our lives will be similar to that of our parents. They will not be. That's just our reality.[/QUOTE] And I think the worst part about it is that what we need to change, we're being blocked from changing, and being talked down to while it's being done. We're drowning, someone's holding us under the water, and they're telling us to quit being crybabies.
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