When I last looked, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill was still very carefully trying to say nothing at all about the EPA’s proposed new emission standards which are designed to reduce carbon emissions in the United States 30% by 2030. Which is actually pretty much in line with her past behavior; McCaskill has long been a disappointment to her constituents when it comes to showing leadership on the issue of climate change. She has been very careful to avoid even the appearance of pulling out the rug from under dirty coal, the producers and consumers of which are a powerful force in Missouri which currently gets 80% of its energy from fossil fuels.

McCaskill’s past arguments for rejecting stronger regulation of carbon emissions from coal-fired energy plants have revolved around: (1) the supposed potential for economic hardship for “Missouri’s families,” and, (2) the assertion that the costs would be born disproportionately by the U.S. She has noted that “it’s not going to do us any good to clean up our act as it relates to the atmosphere. It’s the same atmosphere that China shares and Japan shares and India shares. Some very big industrial countries.”

The first argument, which McCaskill shares with most Republican apologists for fossil fuels, should, by now, occasion the great hilarity that is due arguments that pit relatively minor, short-term concerns against long-term, global survival. After all, while it’s questionable that efforts to reduce carbon emissions will seriously harm those Missouri families she is so fond of citing, doing nothing about climate change is going to really hurt Missourians over the next thirty years, particularly those dependent on agriculture. A recent report stipulates that “higher temperatures will reduce Midwest crop yields by 19 percent by midcentury and by 63 percent by the year 2100.” McCaskill’s position also ignores the hidden costs of fossil fuel dependence, such as the personal and economic aspects of its effect on public health.  

A new report, the 2014 Low Carbon Economy Index (LCEI), demonstrates the emptiness of McCaskill’s international rationale for delaying action on carbon emisions. According to the LCEI:

… . China could be viewed as the poster child for developing countries, with a 2013 national decarbonisation rate of 4%. China improved its energy intensity by 3% in 2013, the third highest amongst the G20, and has a flourishing renewable energy sector 2. China also launched seven regional emissions trading schemes over the last year, although these are unlikely to have a dramatic impact on emissions in the short term. …

And:

While coal use in China rose by 3.7% in 2013, it is at a much slower rate than in previous years. China has made public efforts to curb coal use to manage its air pollution problems, for example a limit on coal use to 65% of its energy mix, and more recently a proposed ban on coal-fired power in Beijing by 2020. …  

China lowered its carbon emissions by 3.5%, a full percentage point more than the US where:

A revival of coal […], driven by a combination of falling coal prices and rising gas prices, has also been a major factor in the low US position in the G20 decarbonisation league table. Coal in the US has regained some market share from natural gas in the generation mix  ince its low in April 2012, causing an increase in emissions, and dispelling the myth that a shale gas revolution will necessarily result in emissions reductions. …

Don’t these numbers make it clear that we can no longer allow our politicans to point to the other guy in order to excuse inaction on carbon emissions? Certainly we should not allow Senator McCaskill to do so when the time comes when she will have to make her position on the new EPA regulations known. While the reduction in carbon emissions that these regulations would achieve is still not enough to stop potentially catastrophic global warming, they would still move us significantly forward in that direction:

If the rule goes forward as it is currently conceived, this proposal, combined with the reductions to date and those that will be driven by prior executive actions addressing the transportation sector, would, in approximate terms, put the US on a path to achieve Obama’s 17% by 2020 pledge. However, putting the proposed rule in context of the global de-carbonization challenge, it will achieve a small portion of the reductions required to stay within 2°C carbon budget. The EPA estimates it will result in reductions from the business as usual case of 545 MM tonnes of CO2 in 2030*. This plan would contribute a cumulative 5.9% reduction in US carbon intensity or an average annual additional intensity reduction of 0.39%

.

Isn’t it time for the US to start to play the leadership role when it comes to climate change that those advocates of “American exceptionalism” expect us to play when the question involves military action? Let’s ask Senator McCaskill why China should have to do all the heavy lifting – particularly since it’s clear that no nation can do it alone. And while we’re at it, let’s ask the Senator why she can’t manage to play more of a leadership role when it comes to helping our state make the transition from dirty energy sources – surely she can manage to stop concentrating on keeping her balance on the center line that runs down that rightward veering highway she’s been traveling in order to help determine the outcome of what will probably be the defining issue of our time.

Update:  Via Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore, Paul Krugman writes today on false economic arguments of the fossil fuel advocates:

I’ve just been reading two new reports on the economics of fighting climate change: a big study by a blue-ribbon international group, the New Climate Economy Project, and a working paper from the International Monetary Fund. Both claim that strong measures to limit carbon emissions would have hardly any negative effect on economic growth, and might actually lead to faster growth. This may sound too good to be true, but it isn’t. These are serious, careful analyses.

But you know that such assessments will be met with claims that it’s impossible to break the link between economic growth and ever-rising emissions of greenhouse gases, a position I think of as “climate despair.” The most dangerous proponents of climate despair are on the anti-environmentalist right. But they receive aid and comfort from other groups, including some on the left, who have their own reasons for getting it wrong.

Their own reasons …. hmmm. Locally, could that be Peabody Coal? Along with all the voting Missourians who get all their information from Fox News? How do you balance them beans against climate apocalypse?

I’ve just returned from a lovely and isolated vacation in the Canadian Rockies and, lo and behold, as soon a I got back to Missouri I think that I may have seen one of those proverbial winged piggies flying just over the spot where Hell froze over. What I’m talking about is the response to President Obama’s proposed new carbon emission standards. Of course that flying piggy isn’t from Missouri’s Senate contingent, all of whom seem to be oinking along the same old muddy road.

Start with Republican Senator Roy Blunt who couldn’t wait to go to bat for the energy industry sugar daddies who love him so generously. Blunt  has promised a heroic battle against these standards. He says they will – what else – “kill jobs and raise electric rates.” This, of course, is what Blunt says about anything that emanates from the Democratic administration that saved us from the GOP engendered financial crisis of 2008. The only thing different is that this time he tried to put some numbers to his claims of economic hardship to come, numbers that could be double-checked, and lots of very public merriment – at poor Blunt’s expense – ensued when a journalist at Roll Call did just that. Of course, I noticed some yahoo quoting those same figures in a recent letter the editor published in a little local newspaper so I guess Blunt knows how to please his main audience.

Democratic Senator Claire Mcaskill, on the other hand, is trudging along in her same old rut as well – the one that runs down the middle of any controversial road and avoids veering in any meaningful direction. She’s “withholding judgement while she studies the proposal and gathers public input.” Even before the standards were made public, she’s was a busy little equivocator:

I believe that climate change is real, I believe that it is dangerous, I believe that it is the result of man-made activity, and I trust science.

“I’m not happy about this,” she added, “but Missouri is incredibly coal-dependent for its energy needs. Which means that any aggressive changes in the availability of coal-fired electricity will have a direct impact on whether or not people with fixed incomes and small businesses can afford their energy bills.”

Gee, what does the destruction of the Missouri agricultural ecosystem, not to mention the planet itself, matter if it adds a few dollars to the old utility bill. Since our Missouri politicians are more than willing to subsidize farmers right now, perhaps they could extend some energy subsidies to those who really need them – if I remember correctly, the cap-and-trade bill McCaskill voted against a few years ago proposed to do just that. (McCaskill shares her reluctance to deal with the true costs of coal-generated electricity with Rep. Billy Long (R-7) who also wails about the potential higher utility bills. That alone ought to persuade her to rethink her rhetoric.)

But apart from the question of subsidies, don’t you think that a politician as savvy as McCaskill might figure out that it’s not an all or nothing proposition, that there are ways to mitigate the difficulties inherent in reducing the indirect subsidies that prop up coal use – maybe it’s time for the McCaskills in our Congress, those nefarious Red State Democrats, to take a chance, take a real stand, do the right thing and get real abut renewables instead of hemming, hawing and, in the end, pandering to a destructive status quo. The European Union is now producing so much energy from renewables that it has to figure out how to deal with structural problems caused by oversupply. Why can’t that be Missouri’s problem?

No, the piggy that seems to be sprouting a tiny, feathery winglet or two is Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-7). Usually Vicky is a good little soldier who marches in lock-step with the radical right wing, anti-science base. However, she’s on the record saying that the proposed rules “aren’t as bad as once feared,” and, unlike Senator Blunt’s rhetorical overreach, actually seems to be willing to point out that the rules permit the states some flexibility that can be used to mitigate their impact.

Of course, those may not be incipient wings on that pig, but just lipstick smears. Hartzler did make these statements at a panel discussion dominated by speakers from Missouri’s coal-dependent utilities who tried to sound reasonable and scientifically literate while doing their utmost to keep the renewable energy genie tightly under control lest it upend their their very profitable business models. As research into mechanisms that will store energy generated by renewable sources begins to show serious results, these folks don’t want to be left holding an empty bag. Among them are the same Ameren types who a few years ago proposed a surcharge for consumers who cut their energy use.

But still, it is something when righteous rightwing Vicky Hartzler, of all the politicians in the state, actually acts like she is aware of what the new regulations really propose to do – no matter whose bottom line she wants to protect. And unlike our Democratic Senator McCaskill, who seems to understand the issues even more fully, but who willfully ignores the call to action, Hartzler has struggled to give a coherent response, albeit one that befits an honest conservative. As Paul Krugman observes apropos the Republican reaction to the proposed regulations:

Claims that the effects will be devastating are, however, not just wrong but inconsistent with what conservatives claim to believe. Ask right-wingers how the U.S. economy will cope with limited supplies of raw materials, land, and other resources, and they respond with great optimism: the magic of the marketplace will lead us to solutions. But they abruptly lose their faith in market magic when someone proposes limits on pollution – limits that would largely be imposed in market-friendly ways like cap-and-trade systems. Suddenly, they insist that businesses will be unable to adjust, that there are no alternatives to doing everything energy-related exactly the way we do it now.

So maybe I was right. Maybe I did see a pig lift off, just a little bit. Perhaps Vicky Hartzler is more honest than I had thought. Given the clouds of lies and distortions  consistently rolling in from the rightward direction, that’s at least refreshing.

Via Think Progress we learn that Missouri is among the ten states that got the most disaster aid in 2011 and 2012. Lots of that aid was in response to events that reflect the increasing toll that human activity is taking on the climate:

There is new evidence that climate change played a role in the extreme weather events of 2012. A recently released analysis from the American Meteorological Society, for example, determined that:

Approximately half the analyses found some evidence that anthropogenically caused climate change was a contributing factor to the extreme event examined, though the effects of natural fluctuations of weather and climate on the evolution of many of the extreme events played key roles as well.

Think Progress notes the interesting fact that these states are responsible for many of the climate-science deniers in congress:

Interestingly, many of the states that received the most federal recovery aid to cope with climate-linked extreme weather have federal legislators who are climate-science deniers. The ten states that received the most federal recovery aid in FY 2011 and 2012 elected 47 climate-science deniers to the Senate and the House. Nearly two-thirds of the senators from these top 10 recipient states voted against granting federal emergency aid to New Jersey and New York after Superstorm Sandy.

As I have pointed out previously, you can count the Missouri GOP delegation among those 47 climate-science deniers in Congress. Think Progress also does well to note the hypocrisy involved – GOP Senator Roy Blunt, who voted against Superstorm Sandy aid, has been first in line demanding relief from the numerous climate disasters that have struck Missouri’s farmers over the past several years. Blunt was not alone – all the GOP members of the Missouri House delegation voted against Superstorm Sandy relief, while grubbing for every cent they can get for Missouri’s misfortunes. Part of the GOP resistance to Superstorm Sandy aid was based on the fact that it called for funds to rebuild in ways that could mitigate future damage from frequent repeats of the superstorm, implicitly endorsing the findings of climate scientists that predict increasingly violent weather events.

What can motivate individuals who join a political party that has for decades boasted of its fiscal conservatism to blindly persist in a spurious climate-science denialism that is proving increasingly costly to both their constituents, the welfare of their state, and to the nation as a whole? After all, it’s clear that playing mean when the disaster strikes New Jersey, New York or other states and throwing cash around liberally when it hits home won’t balance the books in the long run.

I’m sure that the answer to that question is complex, but there are some simple aspects involved and they have to do with Big Oil money and the struggle for partisan advantage that animates today’s GOP. Just consider that:

HSBC Securities’ analysis shows that oil companies will lose up to 60 percent of their value if a policy aiming for the internationally-recognised two-degree climate policy objective is implemented.

Then stop and think how much  Big Oil money goes into Republican coffers (see also here and here for some specifics). Makes that disaster aid seem kind of puny – for the time being at least.

The Keystone Pipeline would cross the central United States carrying environmentally “dirty” tar sands oil to refineries on the Gulf. Environmentalists oppose it on numerous grounds. Those who support it it usually do so on the grounds that it would create jobs in the U.S. and would lessen our energy dependence on the Middle East. Both claims have been convincingly disputed. The jobs claim, however, has been a constant talking point among Missouri’s Republican delegation to Washington D.C.:

I wrote last week that Rep. Ann Wagner (R-4) was getting all worked up that the president had had the gall to call Republicans out on the topic of the economy while delaying approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Right now, President Obama can approve the Keystone XL pipeline and create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs while ushering in a new era of energy independence.

GOP Senator Roy Blunt also thinks Keystone XL is a great idea according to a press release on his Website:

Blunt cosponsored bipartisan legislation – which was introduced by U.S. Senator John Hoeven (N.D.) and is cosponsored by 44 Senators – to authorize the construction and operation of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Keystone XL Pipeline would create an estimated 20,000 jobs.

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3) claims that if the President endorses the pipeline, “the end result will be the creation of 20,000 jobs and the reduction of our dependence on foreign oil.”

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4) also likes that 20,000 number, claiming on her Website, that “TransCanada, the builder of the pipeline, plans to spend  $7 billion in the U.S. and create 20,000 jobs.”

Ever the team player, Rep. Billy Long (R-7) goes along with the idea that it’s all about jobs, claiming that “the Keystone pipeline is a privately funded jobs project.” Imagine! I bet TransCanada thinks it’s significantly more that a “jobs project” when it comes to their bottom line.

On the other hand we have President Obama who recently indicated the criteria he would use to judge whether or not to okay the pipeline project. In his statement, he discounted the jobs argument that has become an article of faith among his Republican detractors, who were moved to near hysterical levels of invective when he delayed his decision on the pipeline last year. Instead, the President observed that:

“Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator,” Obama told the Times. “There is no evidence that that’s true. The most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline, which might take a year or two, and then after that we’re talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 jobs in an economy of 150 million working people.”

On one side: right-wing, free-market ideologues, many of whom are in hock to the energy industries that fund their campaign with big donations. On the other side: a famously cautious, centrist politician with nothing to gain from Big Oil who has taken the time to review all the arguments – and who has no ideologically implanted hostility to environmentalism baked into his genetic makeup.

The real indication that something is amiss with the GOP job estimates, however, is a fact that our pols ought to be aware of. The company that wants to build the pipeline, TransCanada itself, has been backing off the earlier estimates of large numbers of jobs:

In January of 2010, Trans-Canada CEO Russell Girling claimed that the project would produce 13,000 construction jobs.  In April of 2011 the number grew to 20,000, which the Canadian Ambassador reiterated in August 2011.  In January 2012 the number was revised back down to 13,000 and this past April the company revised that number even lower, to 9,000 construction jobs.

Nine thousand jobs are still more than the estimates prepared by the State Department and those offered in another study done by Cornell University, but it’s getting closer and closer to the ball park in which opponents of the pipeline have been playing. This fact alone suggests that our Republicans should be worried that they’re promising lots more than TransCanada can deliver.

ADDENDA:  TransCanada is sending mixed messages, apparently backtracking again to the 20,000 jobs figure – at least for public consumption – and claiming disingenuously that “there is no reason for us to overinflate our numbers, we have to answer to our board, we have to answer to our shareholders.”  The 9,000 number comes as noted above from the TransCanada CEO, Russell Girling in April of this year; the reiteration of the 20,000 number comes from a company “spokesperson,” one James Miller apropos the “political” situation that he posits as the rationale behind the President’s comments. Draw your own conclusions.  

While conceding the destructive potential of climate change in her reaction to President Obama’s plans to fight climate change, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill echoed the same faux economic worries that she has cited in the past and that her colleague, Republican Senator Roy Blunt, put forward more forcefully yesterday. She’s worried, she claims, about the potential of curbing carbon emissions to increase energy prices:

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo, asserted that climate change “is a real and growing threat to the health and livelihoods of Missourians.” But she offered faint praise for some of Obama’s proposal and questioned others.

Proposed carbon rules for existing power plants, McCaskill said, “will need serious review to ensure they don’t harm working families.” She added her preference that the regulations be directed by Congress rather than executive order.

Regulations directed by Congress? Really? Remind me what Congress has done to date to regulate carbon emissions. As I recollect, congressional inaction – or even outright hostility to action – has been the norm in spite of the fact that leading climate scientists have testified in congressional hearings that our current path will lead to disaster. In the face of the congressional politicization of a life-and-death issue, I’m surprised that McCaskill has the chutzpah to try to squelch action with more politics, but, as I am beginning to realize, that’s the way our girl rolls.

I can only repeat what I said apropos of Senator Blunt’s entirely predictable “war on jobs” reaction:

If we could get politicians like Blunt to stop whining about imagined or short-term economic impacts and do something constructive to help us cope with climate change, we’d realize some positive economic benefits as well as an improved quality of life.

Substitute McCaskill for Blunt and add that the road to progress could do without politicians who are more concerned with covering their backsides than doing the right thing, and the assertion would be just as true. Of course, to be fair, McCaskill, who dithered and arguably helped kill the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, sounds a lot more tentative in her response than she did in 2009. Perhaps if she understands that there are Missourians who support vigorous action on climate change, she’ll work harder to educate those among us who, because they have been misled by corrupt politicians and fossil-fuel industry spokespeople, don’t understand the urgency of the climate change challenge. As noted by the Union of Conerned Scientists:

Climate change carries serious consequences both for humans and for ecosystems. This is a crisis that will affect our food, our national security, our water, our ability to live where we choose, and other basic human needs. Whether and how we address global warming is not a question of science, it’s a question of values.

Kinda makes McCaskill’s implied concerns about energy prices rising a few cents seem kind of puny, doesn’t it? Maybe today would be a good time to send our Democratic Senator an educational email on the topic. Contact her here if  you’re so inclined.

Via a post on DailyKos, I learned that Organizing for America (OFA) is encouraging those of us who are concerned by the growing evidence of potentially disastrous man-made climate change to confront climate change deniers in our congressional delegation:

Climate change is real, it’s caused largely by human activities, and it poses significant risks for our health. Some members of Congress disagree with this simple, scientifically proven fact. We need to work to curb climate change, and a big step is to raise our voices to change the conversation in Washington. Call these deniers out. Hold them accountable. Ask them if they will admit climate change is a problem.

To this end OFA is putting together a Web page, “Call Out the Climate Change Deniers,” that details and sources statements made by congressional deniers.

The Missouri denialist contingent as enumerated by OFA includes the following:

–Sen. Roy Blunt:

“There isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth.”[source]

–Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4):

“Enjoying another beautiful global warming day in Missouri! Rep. Skelton and the UN Summit need to quit their dist. of wealth for a hoax.”[source]

–Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3) (who began his Washington career with a dim-witted but all-out attack on climate science):

Luetkemeyer’s legislation would prohibit U.S. contributions to the IPCC, which is nothing more than a group of U.N. bureaucrats that supports man-made claims on global warming that many scientists disagree with…. Meanwhile, our very own Environmental Protection Agency recently reported that we are undergoing a period of worldwide cooling. [source]

The OFA page, a work in progress, is, however, incomplete when it comes to Missouri climate change offenders. As you can deduce from the information presented on the Web site, On the Issues, Sam Graves (R-6), Billy Long (R-7) and Ann Wagner (R-2) aren’t any better when it comes to climate issues – just quieter. They have consistently voted against regulating CO2 emissions while wholeheartedly supporting the fossil fuel industry, subsidies and all. Both Long and Wagner, for instance,  signed the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity’s “No Climate Tax Pledge,” which states ” “I pledge to the taxpayers of my state, and to the American people, that I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.”  Wagner has also gone on the record with the belief that cap-and-trade would have no impact on global temperatures.

According to the National Journal’s Coral Davenport, the willingness of so many legislators to do the bidding of big-bucks corporate donors in the fossil-fuel industries is beginning to grate on those conservatives who realize that the evidence for denialism is bogus:

Emanuel predicts that many more voters like him, people who think of themselves as conservative or independent but are turned off by what they see as a willful denial of science and facts, will also abandon the GOP, unless the party comes to an honest reckoning about global warming.

And a quiet, but growing, number of other Republicans fear the same thing. Already, deep fissures are emerging between, on one side, a base of ideological voters and lawmakers with strong ties to powerful tea-party groups and super PACs funded by the fossil-fuel industry who see climate change as a false threat concocted by liberals to justify greater government control; and on the other side, a quiet group of moderates, younger voters, and leading conservative intellectuals who fear that if Republicans continue to dismiss or deny climate change, the party will become irrelevant.

[…]

The goal of grassroots efforts is to persuade Republicans that they’ll be rewarded if they take a stand in support of climate action-and that they could doom their party to minority status if they don’t.

Consequently, it might very well be a good time for a strategy of confrontation such as that envisioned by the OFA. So your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to get your representatives unequivocally on the record – phone any of them, write them and ask them if they believe that climate change is happening and that it is caused by human activity that we must change in order to stave off disaster. Be sure to let our cadre of climate change deniers know that we’ll do what can to insure that their days in Washington will be numbered if they persist. It also wouldn’t hurt if you could write letters to the editor of your local paper about your representative’s denialist beliefs. No matter what you do, we need to make it clear that addressing man-made climate change is an urgent priority and that the GOP cannot sweep it under a fossil-fuel industry funded rug any longer.

*Edited slightly for style and to add inadvertent omissions.

Last night, President Obama at the Democratic National Convention:

President Obama: And yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet. Because climate change is not a hoax. [cheers, applause] More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They are a threat to our childrens’ future. [cheers] And in this election you can do something about it.[cheers]

Definitely not a speech for any stupid people who let a fake news cable channel make up their minds for them.

It’s been very, very hot, and very, very dry here in Missouri. Local papers have been full of articles about farmers who fear they’re going to loose their crops. For example:

Kelly Forck, a soybean and corn farmer outside of Jefferson City, worries that his livelihood may be threatened if the dry weather persists. Forck thinks that without significant rain in the next week – and beyond – his crops could take a turn for the worse.

“Things are going to look pretty desolate pretty fast if we don’t see some precipitation,” said Forck. “Production is the name of the game and without water, it’s game over…if we don’t see some additional moisture come along, we’re going to see the yields diminish rapidly, extremely fast.”

Today on the PBS NewsHour Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research explicitly made the association that many of us have been tentatively tossing around:

… you know, you look out the window and you see climate change in action.

What farmers are seeing this year is in Trenberth words, “a view of the future.” According to the United States Global Change Research Program, farmers in the Midwest can increasingly expect the same and more:

While the longer growing season provides the potential for increased crop yields, increases in heat waves, floods, droughts, insects, and weeds will present increasing challenges to managing crops, livestock, and forests. Spring flooding is likely to delay planting. An increase in disease-causing pathogens, insect pests, and weeds cause additional challenges for agriculture. Livestock production is expected to become more costly as higher temperatures stress livestock, decreasing productivity and increasing costs associated with the needed ventilation and cooling equipment.

Apt to be costly for farmers – not to mention  costly for consumers and taxpayers who will be on the hook for agricultural crop insurance.

The 2009 cap-and-trade bill was probably one of the last chances we had to begin to mitigate the trajectory of the coming climate changes. But Missouri Farm-Bureau President, Charlie Kruse, who orchestrated farmers in a campaign to fight the legislation, had this to say about that legislation:

All the things that farmers have to buy that are so energy intensive – I just don’t believe that what little positive may come out of this for farmers is going to offset the increased costs.

Compare higher energy costs – which, for a number of reasons, will eventually be inevitable anyway – to failed crops, insect invasions, flooding, you name it, more years than not, and tell me again about the destructive impact of higher energy costs. If I didn’t believe that Missouri’s farmers were misled by politicians doing the energy industry’s bidding, I’d be tempted to say what they’re gonna get probably serves them right. It’s just too bad the rest of us are going to feel the pain right along with them.

We all know that right wing opposition has managed to make climate change almost a political non-issue, However, if we continue to ignore the topic, we may find ourselves in a tough spot because some serious changes that will challenge our ability to thrive are beginning to take place.  In fact, the world is rapidly nearing a “tipping point,” beyond which escalating changes cannot be reversed. If we are to survive with at least minimal pain, we will have to plan ahead in order to be able to adapt to a radically different environment. And, in Missouri, I can guarantee you, those farmers grousing that cap-and-trade would raise their energy expenses really won’t like what’s coming down the road right at them thanks to their short-term thinking.

Changing precipitation patterns in particular will have the potential to affect our economic well being and will radically challenge agriculture in the state. A new report from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Ready or Not: An Evaluation of State Climate and Water Preparedness Planning, underscores the need for adaptive planning at the state level:

Some states are leading the way in preparing for water-related impacts with integrated and comprehensive preparedness plans that address all relevant water sectors and state agencies. Unfortunately, other states are lagging when it comes to consideration of potential climate change impacts — or have yet to formally address climate change preparedness at all.

Interested in what’s going on in Missouri to get us ready for the future? Click through to this interactive map for a summary of the Report‘s findings and you’ll learn that “Missouri is among the least prepared states when it comes to preparing for climate change.”

While our officials do nothing, the events that the Report identifies as potential risks for Missouri have started to occur with greater frequency: Extreme spring storms with attendant damage and flooding risks, extended periods of late season drought, and changes in the marine life and navigability of our waterways. Climate change is already altering Missouri.

If you look at the interactive map, click on Missouri, and then click on the “learn more” button, you will be taken to the section of the report (pdf) dealing with Missouri in greater depth. The big takeaway for me was that Missouri had actually started to address greenhouse pollution issues as early as 1989:

Planning for climate change in Missouri began in 1989 with the Missouri Commission on Global Climate Change and Ozone Depletion. The commission’s 1991 report concluded that climate change was occurring and was likely to challenge Missouri’s ability to adapt. This report led the state to act on two fronts. In 1996 the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) completed an inventory of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. In 1999 DNR released a second report, which provided emissions projections up to 2015. These two projects led to a more detailed report in 2002, Action Options for Reducing Missouri Greenhouse Gas Emissions.47 This report examined greenhouse gas reduction strategies in five sectors: agriculture and forestry, building energy use, transportation, energy generation, and solid waste. The steering committee for this report, composed of stakeholders from across the state, compiled a list of more than 40 “no regrets” strategies in a variety of sectors.4

But guess what the payoff has been? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. The GOP dominated General Assembly let it die and the work that had been done came to nothing:

The Missouri Global Warming Solutions Act of 2008, which would have required the state to establish rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and monitor statewide emissions limits, would have been a first step at implementing some of these recommendations; however, it was never voted on by the General Assembly.

Nor have the state officials been willing to take up the pressing need to plan for climate change impacts. Nothing has been done to identify what the report terms the state’s “vulnerabilities” and devise strategies to reduce them, nor have considerations of climate change been incorporated into the state’s water resources management plan.

Wonder why this is? The easy answer is the generally anti-science, climate denialist trend in the Republican Party which currently runs things in Jefferson City. But do you think it might also have something to do with the fact that many of the GOPers we send to Jefferson City are more than willing to take their marching orders from far-right organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which gets big parts of its funding from oil barons like the Kochs and their ilk? As Al Gore, that poor, much maligned punching bag for the anti-environmentalist right, has observed about the so-called climate change “debate”:

If the people that believed the moon landing was staged on a movie lot had access to unlimited money from large carbon polluters or some other special interest who wanted to confuse people into thinking that the moon landing didn’t take place, I’m sure we’d have a robust debate about it right now.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal, which seems to have morphed into Rubert Murdoch’s effort to recreate Fox News in print, ran what Ed Kilgore calls the “climate-change deniers’ greatest-hits edition”:

In these turgid lines can be found a treasure trove of prevarications. You’ve got your impressive-sounding list of scientists agreeing with the Journal (with no corresponding list of those who disagree; the newsprint or bandwith necessary to publish those would bankrupt even the WSJ). You’ve got your quote marks around the term global warming. You’ve got your allusions to the silly “Climategate” kerfuffle. And you’ve got your unsubstantiated allegations of “persecution” of the brave “heretics” who dare stand with poor, puny Industry against the awesome power of academics.

Well and good. Most of us know where the editorial page at the WSJ is coming from. For those who don’t, who think that this contrived tripe means that scientists are really “uncertain” about human caused climate change, a couple of articles in yesterday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggest that they’ll be in for a rude awakening sometime over the next couple of decades.

The first article in the Post-Dispatch confirms the impression of many of locals that  the St. Louis area really has been getting warmer. The USDA has kicked the region up a notch on its planting zone map. While the article describes this change as positive – gardeners can now overwinter more delicate subtropical plants – it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that there could also be negative implications for traditional crops as well as for crop pests that can thrive when winters are warmer, especially if this is only the beginning of a warming trend.

The second article notes that the on-going drought in the Southwest is one of the reasons for rising beef prices. Many climate scientists believe that such droughts, which have afflicted the area since 2001, will become the norm over time as warming accelerates.

These two casual pieces of reporting should not only concern those lulled into complacency by climate denialism, but those as well who acknowledge that warming is taking place, but think it is too expensive to do what is necessary to mitigate its effects. For instance, on the topic of drought, scientists warn that:

… climate warming will exacerbate water sustainability problems, the Southwest is likely to experience some of the highest economic expenses and environmental losses.

Nor are the risks of drought confined to the Southwest. Many climate-change models predict that as many as 87% of Missouri’s counties “will face higher risks of water shortages by mid-century as the result of climate change.” The new USDA map is one of the first indications that the process of warming is underway.

Senator Claire McCaskill often claims that she opposes meaningful efforts to control carbon emissions because of the it might increase energy costs and stress economically challenged Missouri families. Politicians like Blaine Luetkemeyer work hard to keep farmers worried over probably baseless threats that controlling carbon emissions will increase costs. No Missouri politicians seem to be worried about just how expensive doing nothing could very well be.

Even if dire claims about increased expense that will follow from effort to mitigate carbon emissions aren’t, at the very least, highly exaggerated, they still represent short-term thinking in the face of a long-term march to disaster. I hope that the same Missouri families and farmers remember who misled them when they have to pony up to deal with the far more expensive problems attendant upon escalating climate change.

*Inadvertently omitted text restored to first sentence of last paragraph.