Month: November 2014

In a piece that confusingly
suggests that politicians skeptical of permament war are hiding
their true colors until after the midterm election even as he
concedes that non-interventionism is an increasingly popular
position among Americans, Nicholas Wapshott frets for Politico that
“after
election day, the isolationists will be back.”

When we wake up Wednesday morning, a lot of us will be
isolationists again. All the tough election-season rhetoric about
supporting U.S. troops abroad will have disappeared overnight, and
many Americans can be expected to revert back to what has been a
rising and unmistakable trend: For the first time in nearly
three-quarters of a century – since the months before Dec. 7,
1941—many people are forthrightly embracing isolationism as an
election issue. And the feeling isn’t likely to go away any time
soon, despite some recent polls suggesting that more and
more Americans outraged by the videotaped beheadings of two
journalists have supported military action against ISIL, also known
as the Islamic State. With the war against ISIL expected to last
many years, the pivotal issue of the 2016 election might turn out
to be not the economy or health care but whether the United States
should continue as the world’s policeman, as it has since the end
of World War II, or should finally come home for good.

“Isolationism” is Wapshott’s preferred term throughout; he
castigates as a “weasel word” any attempt to distinguish
isolationists who didn’t want to engage the world at all from
non-interventionists who support free trade and peaceful
interaction with the world, but object to the D.C. fetish for
dropping American bombs and bodies into every knife fight on the
planet.

Wapshott acknowledges that “isolationism” as well as opposition
to NSA surveillance unites Americans, “bringing together the far
left of the Democratic Party with libertarian Republicans in a show
of solidarity rarely seen in Washington.”

It’s also popular among Americans who vote for those
politicians, he concedes, with support for limited action against
ISIS acting as an
exception to public opposition to greater military
intervention, according to Pew. Reason-Rupe polling finds
almost identical results, with
support for air strikes against ISIS balanced against opposition to
the use of ground forces.

That skepticism about intervention
extends elsewhere, according to Reason-Rupe polling. Only 28
percent of Americans want to increase the U.S. military presence
around the world, while 36 percent want to decrease America’s
global military presence.

This skepticism of permanent war is so popular
that…non-interventionists send “dog-whistle signals” to reassure
the faithful without letting hawks catch on, according to Wapshott.
But “as soon as the midterms are out of the way, dovish Democrats
and libertarian Republicans will feel free once again to express
their reluctance to continue to support military action
abroad.”

But the polling…Never mind. Wapshott is convinced that this is
an underground movement—of the majority.

His spin aside, Wapshott is likely right. Non-interventionism—or
“isolationism,” if he insists—is on the rise, with limited
exceptions made for special horrors like ISIS. Wapshott clearly
doesn’t like that development, but those of us who care about
American lives might find it encouraging.

On
Sunday, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) released its Synthesis Report that summarizes the
findings of its three earlier reports on the physical science of
man-made global warming, and the analyses of how to mitigate and
adapt to future climate change.  The report declares:

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the
1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades
to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of
snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.
…

It is extremely likely that more than half of the
observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951
to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas
concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.

Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at
the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. The
period from 1983 to 2012 was likely the warmest 30-year
period of the last 1400 years in the Northern Hemisphere, where
such assessment is possible (medium confidence). The
globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature data
as calculated by a linear trend, show a warming of 0.85°C [0.65 to
1.06°C] over the period 1880 to 2012, when multiple independently
produced datasets exist.

The report blames the ongoing 15-year pause in global warming on
“natural variability,” noting:

Due to this natural variability, trends based on short records
are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in
general reflect long-term climate trends. As one example, the rate
of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to 0.15]
°C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than
the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C
per decade).

The authors of the report evidently expect that the pause should
soon end. As a consequence the report projects:

The global mean surface temperature change for the period
2016-2035 relative to 1986-2005 is similar for the four RCPs
[modeled warming scenarios] and will likely be in the
range 0.3°C- 0.7°C (medium confidence).

That implies that warming could increase by as much as 0.35
degrees per decade, which is nearly triple the rate the IPCC
reports for period after 1951, and 7-times higher than the rate of
increase it reports for the last 15 years.

The report lays out a global carbon budget with the goal of
keeping temperatures beneath the 2°C threshold relative to the
1861-1880 baseline set at the UN’s Copenhagen climate change
conference in 2009. Humanity has already pumped the equivalent of
about 1900 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and can
only emit 1000 gigatons more if there is to be a 66 percent chance
of keeping future temperature increases below 2°C. Humanity is
currently emitting about 50 gigatons per year now, which implies
that the remaining carbon budget would be used up in about 20
years. The Synthesis Report notes:

 Scenarios that are likely to maintain warming at
below 2 C are characterized by a 40% to 70% reduction in GHG
emissions by 2050, relative to 2010 levels, and emissions level
near zero or below in 2100.

So no fossil fuels by 2100. How much would cutting greenhouse
gas emissions cost? The report suggests that it would reduce annual
economic growth over the remainder of the century by between 0.04
to 0.14 percent (median 0.06 percent). Interestingly, the Synthesis
Report observes that estimates for global annual economic losses
for temperature increases of ~2.5 °C above pre-industrial levels
are between 0.2 and 2.0% of income. The report adds:

These impact estimates are incomplete and depend on a large
number of assumptions, many of which are disputable…. As a result,
mitigation cost and climate damage estimates at any given
temperature level cannot be compared to evaluate the costs and
benefits of mitigation.

Well, let’s do a back of the envelope benefit-cost comparison
estimate anyway. The current world GDP is around $70 trillion.
Assuming a baseline growth rate of 2.5 percent for the next 85
years, world GDP would be $612 trillion in 2100. So cutting
greenhouse gas emissions is estimated to reduce GDP between $591
and $545 trillion by 2100. In other words, global GDP will be
between 3.5 and 11 percent lower than if there was no need to
mitigate future climate change. One way to think of this is that
people today making an average global per capita income of just
under $10,000 per year are being asked to sacrifice economic growth
and development for people whose incomes will likely be over
$61,000 per year in 2100.

With due humility the Synthesis Report observes…

…it is outside the scope of science to identify a single best
climate change target and climate policy.

Science may not be able to tell us what to do about man-made
warming, but diplomats at United Nations climate change conferences
this December in Lima, Peru and next December in Paris, France aim
to do just that.

When clashes
between protestors and police in Ferguson, Missouri grew heated
this summer after the police shooting of Michael Brown, local
 law enforcement requested a ban on low-flying aircraft over
the scene.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) complied, and
eventually
renewed the ban, again at police request. The initial FAA order
came after reports that shots had been fired at a police
helicopter, and both orders indicated that they were intended “to
provide a safe environment for law enforcement
activities.” 

But the real reason for the tiny, domestic no-fly zone was to
keep the news media out.

The Associated Press obtained audio recordings
showing “that local authorities privately acknowledged the
purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street
protests.” Indeed, it’s not even entirely clear that the helicopter
shooting incident ever happened. 

The AP reports that the FAA actually struggled to design a
flight ban that would restrict media flyovers but not interfere
with normal commercial flight, which wasn’t viewed as a problem.
After a while, the audio recordings reveal, they gave up and
admitted the real reason they wanted the restrictions: 

“They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out,”
said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series
of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated
Press. “But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything
else that could be going on.

At another point, a manager at the FAA’s Kansas City center said
police “did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR
(temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didn’t want media
in there.”

Police repeatedly claimed that the ban was due to the shots they
said were fired at a law enforcement helicopter. There’s little
evidence that this actually happened. Back to the AP: 

Police officials confirmed there was no damage to their
helicopter and were unable to provide an incident report on the
shooting. On the tapes, an FAA manager described the helicopter
shooting as unconfirmed “rumors.”

As I
said at the time, the “police safety” justification was always
a stretch. Was a news helicopter really going to create a dangerous
environment for the police? If anything, helicopters would be far
less obtrusive than mass of trucks and reporters who clogged the
scene in August. But news helicopters also would have shown a
clearer, more comprehensive view of what was happening—the size and
movements of the protests, the relative size and formations of
police forces, the side-street incidents that, on many nights, were
reported but hard to verify.

Regardless of the outcome of the investigation into the shooting
that started this all, the police behavior during the aftermath is
hard to justify. It’s plain that the local law enforcement didn’t
want the public to know or see what was happening. Throughout the
protests, they treated the media with contempt, illegally demanding
that they stop filming, making violent threats, and arresting
journalists on the scene. 

And now we know that they had airspace blocked off
specifically to keep the media from the space where the view of the
scene would have been clearest, and then pretended that the real
justification was something other than what it was. This wasn’t
about police safety so much as it was about public scrutiny. That’s
what the police were really trying to protect themselves
from. 

Students
at various public schools in West Michigan are subjected to random
searches performed by a specialty canine unit that uncovers
dangerous contraband in kids’ lockers. Really scary stuff, like
hunting gear, pocketknives, fire crackers, prescription medication.
Maybe a
gun-shaped Pop-Tart or two.

According to
mlive.com:

The dogs, which are trained to find drugs, alcohol, gun
powder-based products, tobacco and medications, also are used
locally in Grandville, Forest Hills, East Kentwood and Byron Center
schools among 46 districts across the state. East Grand Rapids uses
the city’s public safety department to conduct regular searches on
its high school campus.

Records obtained by MLive and the Grand Rapids Press under the
Freedom of Information Act show the findings by dogs at area
schools are relatively low compared to overall student population,
but educators believe the more vigilant they are, the better for
students.

The public records request showed the discovery of more than 86
prohibited substances or items at the area schools that have used
Interquest since 2011. Alcohol, tobacco and marijuana or drug
paraphernalia were the most common finds, but dogs also alerted to
fireworks and a toy cap gun among other items banned from school
property.

The searches are performed at random, meaning that no single
student is ever the target. Administrators hold this up as good and
fair—we are trampling your rights, but it’s not
personal!—but the ACLU is skeptical:

“It turns students into suspects in a place where we should be
nurturing them and focusing on their learning,” said Marc Allen, of
the ACLU of Michigan. “There are ways to do a search that are more
narrow and don’t implicate people’s privacy rights.”

I can think of no better way to prepare children to accept the
police state with open arms than to begin subjecting them to
completely undeserved searches in their formative years. These
searches teach them that they have no privacy—there is no place the
authorities can’t touch. They have no right to question or resist.
They need not have done anything wrong. Dubious safety
concerns—seize
the fishing knives!—will always trump common sense.

It’s true that some students bring prohibited substances onto
school property. Of course, so do the dogs’ handlers:

On this day, “Murphy” is led by Kim Heys, who owns the Michigan
Interquest franchise. The 5-year-old canine rolled through the
halls with his nose to the ground until he picked up a suspicious
scent inside a locker and sat down next to it. Heys rewarded him
with a toy and a school security officer opened the door.

Heys pulled out a small container labeled “pseudo heroin” and
sealed it in a plastic bag. The imitation narcotic was one
of several substances she and the other handlers had planted prior
to the search to be sure the canines are performing.

Safety first, kids.

• Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman suffering from terminal
  cancer, committed
  assisted suicide this weekend in Oregon with a lethal dose
  of prescription drugs.
• Audio recordings reveal that the Federal Aviation
  Administration’s 12-day ban on flights over Ferguson, Missouri, was
  intended—at least by local authorities—to
  keep news helicopters from witnessing and covering events
  there.
• It will all be over soon, but one more time for kicks: Weekend
  
  polling numbers show Republican candidates with a slight lead
  over Democrats in several of the more contested U.S. Senate
  races. 
• J/K!, it never ends: Runoff elections are
  looking likely in Georgia and Louisiana, which means “Who will
  control the Senate?” might not actually be answerable until
  2015.
• Meanwhile, in eastern Ukraine, Pro-Russian separatist
  Alexander Zakharchenko has been elected “head of the Donetsk
  People’s Republic”—a vote Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
  denounced as a “farce”. 
• The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments today
  concerning the passports of American citizens born in
  Jerusalem. 
• Canada has officially
  joined in on bombing ISIS. 
• Meet Texas’
  wacky roster of third-party gubernatorial candidates.
   

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