In terms of climate change policies, including international treaties, it seems more fruitful to engage conservatives on their own priorities and strategies for solving the problems associated with our continued reliance on fossil fuels.

First, in terms of conservative economic and industrial priorities, we’ve just lived through eight years of conservative crony capitalism with disasterous results. Conservative deregulation put multinational corporate interests, especially the interests of Wall Street, big oil and big defense, above all other interests and to the obvious detriment to the vast majority of our citizenry. Conservative economic policies benefit a relatively small ownership class at a cost, sometimes horrific, to everyone else. Conservatives have nothing new or helpful to offer going forward. How high would unemployment go and how long would we be in a depression with no stimulus spending and more tax cuts for the wealthy?

Second, the conservative solutions to fossil fuel dependence and greenhouse gas emissions problems (to the extent conservatives acknowledge the problems) are basically drill here, drill now, more nukes, and new technology. We don’t have the fossil fuel resources to solve our dependence problem and exploiting the resources we do have comes at a tremendous environmental cost. We can’t build enough nukes or develop and implement enough new technogies fast enough to reduce GHG emissions quickly enough to solve our GHG emissions problems. In short, none of the conservative solutions work.

Make Newt defend the conservative record and conservative plans for the future.

I must confess to a bit of disatisfaction with the Obama administration over its handling of mountain top removal through the EPA’s approval of 42 out of 48 mountain top removal operations. I am equally livid over a Mother Jones report that the same banks that caused the mess have successfully lobbied to get themselves a new racket in the carbon rip-offsets market. This leaves a lot of doubt in my mind if ripoffsets will ever be sunset with the banks in charge of this racket. Has your bank started lending after the vast government bailout frenzy to the banks?

Future threats to CO2 emissions reductions could occur when gasoline prices skyrocket as they must with the decline of non-OPEC production by 30 million bbd by 2015. You can count on the recycled crazies like washed up Gingrich and Palin with their friends in the coal industry to exploit the situation, regardless of the fact that coal plants don’t make a dime’s worth of difference in the price of gasoline, they will get their permits to build more coal plants and this must be planned for before this occurs.

Rather, what’s important to note is that the corporate-owned, so-called “mainstream” media, e.g. CNN, chose to bullhorn Gingrich’s ignorant and stupid comment to tens of millions of Americans while deliberately suppressing the information that Republican President Ronald Reagan had proclaimed himself a “citizen of the world” in language almost identical to that used by Democratic President Obama.

Likewise, the biggest threat to public appreciation of the grave danger of anthropogenic global warming is not the denialist propaganda of ExxonMobil-funded propaganda mills, or the sneering lies of bought-and-paid-for shills like Senator Inhofe, or the rantings of right wing extremist demagogues like Rush Limbaugh.

Rather, it is the complicity of the half-dozen giant corporations that own and control virtually all of the USA’s mass media in hammering the American people with denialist propaganda over the last couple of decades, while actively disparaging and suppressing accurate scientific information.

The corporate-owned mass media does not use its immense, near-totalitarian control of the “news” upon which the majority of Americans rely to impartially inform and educate the public, as a public service in the public interest. Instead, it uses its power to propagandize and brainwash the American people in furtherance of the corporate agenda.

This is a HUGE obstacle to creating public political support for urgent action on any number of crucial issues, from global warming, to war and peace, to health care.

The great strength of this site is Joe’s ability to integrate climate, energy, and policy issues. It’s all intertwined, just like the citizens of the world. We certainly have the potential to keep up–to the bitter end–the “every-country-for-themselves” mentality that Joe brought up, but we best stay mindful of this general human tendency–balance and counter it with what is more realistic and constructive–or it will take us down.

So you go Joe–wherever you want… and thank you for wading through it all and sharing your knowledge, experience, and perspective.

Newt Gingrich: isolationist.

(Didn’t we try that once before, with disastrous results?)

Is Newt Gingrich channeling Mr. know-it-all from Rocky and Bullwinkle?

Oil sector faces investment crunch – Gazprom CEO
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8551057

at this moment it is -99 degrtees at vostok station antarctica and forecast -113 in 2 days. I just found out china is buying oil.

I admire JFK. He was strongly opposed to abortion and a fiscal conservative also like Newt Gingrich. I have met Newt in person and find he has a better handle on global politics than what we see in leadership today.

Oil sector faces investment crunch – Gazprom CEO
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8551057

A shortage of oil and gas investment means the sector will fail to meet demand ….. Nobody has solved the issue of the “2012 supply gap” which may emerge later than thought but which will be deeper.

“It means prices may even jump over the $250 hurdle we have forecast a year ago,”