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.“
~snip~ Entirely political. ~dbstealey, mod.
Is “entirely political” referring to your own snipping, or my comments? My experience here is that the “moderation” here is primarily a tool for handcuffing “liberal” criticism. Political comments that suit your bias, unless they are OBVIOUSLY off their medications, are regularly approved.
This is called hypocrisy, and goes the heart of this entire web-site’s credibility.
All most of you have are ad hominem attacks on Dr. Hansen and the scientific community by supposed homo sapiens (homo for short).
I was there at the Capital Climate Action in Washington DC, March 2, 2009 and had the pleasure to hear Dr. Hansen speaking truth to power on climate change. Coal is responsible for a third of green house gas emissions responsible for climate change and is a volatile commodity with an expensive future.
Well then, so long as you’re not going to protest nuclear power, pristine land covered by solar collectors and photovoltaic panels, and scenic, delicate ecosystems being overrun by hazardous but mostly useless wind turbines, go ahead and have a blast. Otherwise, you’re going to have to reevaluate your perspective at some point.
Parse Error (08:41:50) : “Coal is responsible for a third of green house gas emissions responsible for climate change and is a volatile commodity with an expensive future.”
I didn’t know that coal was responsible for 30% of atmospheric water vapor. Thanks for the update.
Mark T says:
I have to agree with Mark T (dunno what his politics are 🙂
In my view, imply is used in describing some action by some person who is trying to persuade/influence me in some way. It typically imputes some intent to the person alleged to be doing the implying. However, infer is pretty much neutral and does not impute intent to the person making the inference.
Of course, as with many word pairs that relate to similar areas there is overlap in meaning. However, that does not mean they are interchangeable.
Well what’s so bad about shutting off the heat in congress? Seems like a good idea as long as they don’t do it elsewhere…well maybe at Hansen’s house too.
They should turn the plant off.. for like 12 hours.. see how much people like not having power…
infer-deduce: reason by deduction; establish by deduction
imply-express or state indirectly
Yeah… they’re different words, different meanings. One happens inside your skull, the other proceeds from your mouth, it seems.