The Capital Climate Action protest went on today in Washington DC with a march on the coal fired power plant. Amazingly, NASA’s Dr. James Hansen actually showed up and took the stage at the protest to complete his transformation from scientist to political activist. But, we”ll leave the issue of his appearance there for another discussion.
Here are some scenes from the live web feed today.
Dr. Jim Hansen gets ready to deliver his message at the protest
Here’s a chronological order of the protest in a series of screencaps from the video feed.
Arrival at the power plant.
So THAT’s what those stimulus checks are for.
The camera operator put the camera down on it’s side for about five minutes, giving us this picture. Must have needed to get a smoke.
Interesting things you can do with a scarf and coat hanger wire.
The Native Americans arrive to protest Black Mesa power plant.
The hemp hat trio sings for the crowd.
Bewildered or zoned? I can’t tell.
“Justicia Climatica”? I was confused as to the meaning of this, at first, but then I discovered it was Chilean
The camera operator has issues again…
Coal is dirty. Ok, but have you guys smelled yourselves lately?
Not only can we save the planet, we can show you how to make illegal copies of DVD’s!
Jimbo is warming up in the bullpen.
Closer.
Closer….
And Dr. Jim Hansen is on the air! He’s making a succinct point.
I’ll bet Jim had no idea he was being sponsored by Obama’s stimulus package….oh, wait.
After Dr. Hansen left the stage, a hip-hop group sang his praises. Time for the mute button.
A few observations:
- The snow didn’t seem to interfere with the determined masses walking through it.
- Rage boy wasn’t present, but maybe he missed his flight due to snow delays.
- Most of the speakers recycled everything we’ve already heard before, it was pretty boring.
- Lucia watched this simultaneously, she has some thoughts
- The one highlight was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. saying that Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship “should be in jail… for all of eternity“. Oddly, Kennedy’s message seemed even a bit too extreme for some left leaning news outlets, such as AlterNet which didn’t mention it in this story on the protest though there were other quotes from Kennedy.
- The advertisements that kept popping up on the video certainly didn’t help the credibility.
- One of the chants was “No coal, no gas, no nukes, no kidding”. There was also “Nuclear Hell No”, “Biofuels hell no”. Apparently wind power and solar are the only options they endorse. Iwonder if Jim Hansen has figured this out yet, since he has advocated nuclear power.
- At no time did the simultaneous viewers counter ever reach 1000, the highest I saw was 970. Likewise the number of total viewers that were counted never exceeded 10,000, and the final I saw just before they went off air for the first live feed (with Hansen et al) was 9978. It appears that many people clicked to check it out, but few stayed for the long haul.
- There was lots of singing, chanting, and dancing. Drumsbeats and other percussive instruments filled the air. The native indians used to have rain dances to control the weather, these dances and chants seemed to be aimed at controlling the climate. How far we’ve come.
- They claimed victory and went home, nobody was arrested. Unfortunately I don’t think they realize that simply blocking the gates for a couple of hours is not quite the same as shutting down the boiler.
When it was all over this line from a famous sci-fi series came to mind. I think I’ll send it to Jimbo to hang on his wall:
“Thinking about what you can’t control only wastes energy, and creates its own enemy.“
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Let’s demand that the Capitol be powered by the Cape Cod wind farm with no T.Boone Nat. Gas generator backup.
Looks like just another hippie gathering to me. I wonder if these people realize just how essential coal is in powering this country?
By the way, I agree that the ads “pooping” on the video did not help its credibility at all.
Did George Soros get his money’s worth?
Another line from an early scifi
” You fool you touched the death ray, now we all die”.
And after freezing for a few hours, they all rushed off to a more pleasant fossil fuel controlled environment in their car, hotel or Starbucks to discuss their great victory over the forces of evil that keep them alive.
Sigh it was like watching Canadian news on a American Station
Like not a blip up here.
Our Conservative Government is sucking up to O.B. on climate change its enough to make me quit my next board meeting >.<
Alas I can not, I must fight them from the inside. I feel dirty, I need a shower. 🙁
I understand that the “AGW is religion” meme is tiresome but,
Whose side is the Flying Spaghetti Monster on anyway?
Reply: Ok that was funny. ~ charles the moderator who is taking the rest of the night off.
REPLY: I had to look this up, I don’t get out much like Jim Hansen does.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
– Anthony
Somehow these quotes seemed appropriate to me.
“Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realise how precious it is. How dear to us.”
– Dr Miles Bennell, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956)
“I take a dim view of watching my own destruction.”
– Jack, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956)
“Right now you’re just one man with a very large conspiracy theory… take great care in what you choose to find out.”
– Phil Gordion to Zane, “The Arrival”
I wonder if the entire annual carbon output of this tiny power plant equals the amount of carbon released in all the jet, car and diesel bus fuel burned by hippies running to and from this event.
Gotta give these nihilists credit though. They sure know how to pick their battles.
I would be interested to know the total carbon emissions resulting from the travel of these folks to the protest. How did Dr. Hansen travel down from NYC? Plane?
They all probably bought “offsets” from Al Gore.
How many activists actually turned up to protest ? Theye were hoping for 2500 but it doesn;t seem like that many. Any idea ?
“How did Dr. Hansen travel down from NYC?’
Whatever it was, I will bet it wasn’t nuclear powered.
Kirk W. Hanneman (21:21:39) :
I would be interested to know the total carbon emissions resulting from the travel of these folks to the protest. How did Dr. Hansen travel down from NYC? Plane?
Hansen arrived by Space Shuttle. Oh wait, NASA is no longer supporting the space shuttle, NASA is now a political activist organization.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=215500028&subSection=News
I believe Dr. Hansen has found “his people”, but he has a way to go in adopting the tribal uniform. That goofy trench coat and safari (?) hat combo ain’t gonna’ cut it with the dreadlocks and bong set. It also appears he lost part of an ear to that oversize hat.
Doesn’t smoking marijuana produce CO2?
No way there were “thousands” there. Maybe over a thousand including press, and considering that they were spread around the perimeter of the plant.
Sad thing is that their conclusion will not be that their cause and organizing is weak, but that they did not stage the appropiate type of “action” needed to “affect change” I’m guessing they were held back by the rather open support of the Democratic Party, turning it into a de facto Obama/Democrats love fest rather than “mass action.”
One interesting thing I noticed was that there were several young people playing the role of leaders and leading chants, doing introductions, etc., but it seemed there were some adults in the background actually running things. The young “leaders” seemed to be disappointed in what they could and could not do, and at one point a police official walked up to these folks and told them that he had an agreement on timing with their “leader,” whom he had gone over the details with prior. Kids looked confused and when he described the person in detail, they still had no idea who he was talking about.
Unfortunately, next time they will ramp it up and do something stupid. Hope no one gets hurt.
I wonder how Jim’s new friends will be welcome at the NASA cafeteria? Do they serve hash cookies?
I’m confining my remarks on this matter to my own website http://tinyurl.com/bkdsh9 mainly because I don’t want Charles to snip me.
Same old rent a crowd, same old rent an activist.
Pick a cause and you will see the same old faces, Europe,North America, Asia.
Some of these people even fly internationally to picket a cause.
This might be a good example of the balancing effect of the Taijitu Yin (white snowfall) & Yang (black coal).
The problem here is that it seems that the attendees had both forces (fire & ice) arrayed against them.
Is it no wonder then that their coal protest got a cool reception?
Just an observation….
As CO2 = percent of atmosphere
To Protesters = percent of population
then all plants would die of starvation
Maybe this should be a new SAT question to expose the pro-hemp crowd.
“REPLY: I had to look this up, I don’t get out much like Jim Hansen does.
– Anthony”
When you do get out please have more fashion sense than someone. Remember, people have to look at you–I think someone forgot that.
And btw, what exactly is ‘climate justice’? And how do we get it?
After seeing film of this lame event I can honestly say I’ve seen better film on teeth. There’s like 40 people there. For goodness sake, do they actually feel victory today?
I feel sorry for the college students who flew in to it, if any did, thinking they were going to be at some huge rally.
With the amount of people there what does that say about James Hansen’s (and global warming’s) star power?
the short film :
I think it’s time for the AGW crowd to hire the Iraqi Information Minister from Gulf War II to help them with their cause. Remember him? The guy who said there were no Marines in Baghdad while video of Marines in Baghdad played across the screen?
http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/#quotes
Let me borrow and edit some quotes from the good old Iraqi Information Minister and see if they sound any different from the AGW alarmists:
“There is no snow on the ground in Washington D.C. Never!”
“Our initial assessment is that we will all die from global warming.”
“Our estimates are that none of us will come out alive unless we surrender to carbon cap and trade quickly.”
“I have detailed information about the situation…which completely proves that what the deniers allege are illusions . . . They lie every day.”
“We defeated the coal plant yesterday. God willing, I will provide you with more information. I swear by God, I swear by God, those who care about the Earth have thrown these mercenaries in a crematorium.”
“Global temperatures are no where near dropping..they are rising faster than ever…deniers can not read a thermostat…they are retarded.”
Seriously, these people need to find and hire that guy. He’s about on their level. He would be perfect for their protests and speeches.
All those people bundled up against the bitter cold protesting the heat. Cosmic irony. But then again AGW theory has predicted that CO2 will cause more extreme weather events like DC’s near record cold, and the increase in Antarctic ice and…….