U.S. Climate Politics at “Tipping Point” as Nature Weighs in on Climate Change
July 25, 2014
My brother lives in the Methow Valley of Washington, where fires have raged in recent weeks.
Despite power outages, he was able, with a neighbor, to rig pumps and keep a water sprayer on his ranch, while digging firebreaks – sufficient to avoid significant losses. As more and more Americans have these experiences first hand, Climate denial is more and more on the ropes.
The President’s recent aggressive stand on climate science is the best evidence of what pollsters know – climate denial is withering under the relentless pounding of a changing natural world. Moreover, the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune notes here, that 70 percent of renewable energy is being produced in Republican congressional districts, and the messages from home on the benefits of new energy are filtering through to all but the more thick headed politicians.
View from my Brother’s ranch in the Methow Valley of Washington
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
July 25, 2014 at 11:36 am
PLEASE give him my regards!
July 25, 2014 at 12:45 pm
Expect the fossil-fuel complex to change tact as denial fails to work. Really the fight against renewable energy started LONG before the greenhouse effect/ global warming/ climate change were being spoken about openly in the mass media. I don’t have time to post the myriad of ways the dirty pool is being played by the fossil fuel complex, but this site has shown most of them.
P.S. Good luck to your brother, my sister lives in Pocatello, ID and this stuff scares the living hell out of me and makes me that much more thankful that my family only migrated from Grand Rapids to Southern Wisconsin and not much further west!
July 25, 2014 at 2:53 pm
I meant to say this site has exposed most of them.
July 25, 2014 at 10:39 pm
I hope he comes through this minimally scathed
July 26, 2014 at 12:19 am
My prayers and wishes for the safety and well being of your brother and all those in Okanogon Countly.
I am glad to see the President speaking out and saying what we have all hoped he would say. I am thankful for that.
July 26, 2014 at 9:54 pm
If it’s any consolation, the Pacific NW got wetter during the Medieval Warm Period (when mega droughts were affecting the South West): Here’s an abstract from one of Michael Mann’s (et alia ) papers:
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1,500 year quantitative reconstruction of winter precipitation in the Pacific Northwest
Multiple paleoclimate proxies are required for robust assessment of past hydroclimatic conditions. Currently, estimates of drought variability over the past several thousand years are based largely on tree-ring records. We produced a 1,500-y record of winter precipitation in the Pacific Northwest using a physical model-based analysis of lake sediment oxygen isotope data. Our results indicate that during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) (900–1300 AD) the Pacific Northwest experienced exceptional wetness in winter and that during the Little Ice Age (LIA) (1450–1850 AD) conditions were drier, contrasting with hydroclimatic anomalies in the desert Southwest and consistent with climate dynamics related to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). These findings are somewhat discordant with drought records from tree rings, suggesting that differences in seasonal sensitivity between the two proxies allow a more compete understanding of the climate system and likely explain disparities in inferred climate trends over centennial timescales.
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http://www.pnas.org/content/109/29/11619.full [you have to sign in to see the article]
In other words, dry places get dryer; wet places get wetter.
July 28, 2014 at 1:32 am
Jeb Bush must toe the party line if he wants a stab at ’16.
Jeb knows very well how catastrophic >400ppm will be but he’s just not allowed to acknowledge it.
Any conservative 45th Presidency will still be as reliant on lies as that of the 43rd Presidency.
July 28, 2014 at 9:48 am
Romm and Brune are good spokespersons for the cause. It’s a shame we don’t see more of them.
As Patrick L says, this is scary stuff—-I can’t imagine fires like this that have roaring 100 foot flames and can move faster than you can walk. The few fires back east that I’ve seen tend to be just mostly smoky—-low to the ground, and slow moving in comparison.
July 28, 2014 at 12:41 pm
Your brother crafts organic alcoholic cider?
Move over, Greenman, I think I just found my new favorite Sinclair!
July 28, 2014 at 1:41 pm
I saw that too and got excited, but you have to go to Washington State to buy any.