UPDATE: By popular request, we’re going to do another “liveblog” tomorrow morning when JK talks with Imus, so plan on meeting us here between 7 and 7:30 am eastern to join in.

Here’s tomorrow’s lineup of JK’s media appearances:

7:29 am EST- MSNBC – JK calls into “Imus in the Morning” TV and Radio – watch on MSNBC, or visit the website to find your local radio station.

2:05 – 2:15 pm EST – Ed Schultz Radio Show – JK calls in, visit the website to find your local radio station or click on “ListenLive” to find an streaming internet site.

2:17 – 2:32 pm EST – The Heading Left Show on BlogTalk Radio – Hosted by James Boyce (Huffington Post blogger) and Nate Wilcox – JK will be interviewed on the show. Calls in, visit the website to get the phone number for call ins and listen to the show live via streaming or after the fact via podcast.

[end of update]

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——

JK spoke on the Democratic address yesterday, concluding with:

The veterans who traveled to Capitol Hill this week had the courage to step up and voice their doubts, even as some people attacked them as unpatriotic. It takes a strong heart to stand for something even when it’s unpopular. These veterans remind all of us that patriotism does not belong to those who take the easy road. It belongs to those who defend their country. Sometimes loving your country demands you tell the truth in the face of authority. This is one of those times. Let’s stand with the troops, not just in words but in action.

Here’s links to the complete address to peruse or listen to while we wait for This Week to start. Audio Link | Transcript

This morning, JK’s appearing on ABC News’ This Week with George Stephanopoulos. We’re going to live-blog his appearance this morning with those starting at 9 am eastern kicking things off. Moderation is off so feel free to chime in.

Here’s a link to check when ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos is on your local ABC station.

 

JK is continuing to speak out about developing a plan with a firm deadline to bring our soldiers home and he has several appearances scheduled to talk about his plan and the bill he’s going to introduce in the Senate.

Today: ABC Radio – 11 am – JK gives the Democratic response to the President’s Saturday morning address. We’ll have an update on the blog with his text and audio here.

UPDATE: Audio Link | Transcript

Tomorrow: ABC News – 10 am – JK will be on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Monday:

7:29 am EST- MSNBC – Calls into “Imus in the Morning” TV and Radio – watch on MSNBC, or visit the website to find your local radio station.

2:05 – 2:15 pm EST – Ed Schultz Radio Show – Calls in, visit the website to find your local radio station or click on “ListenLive” to find an streaming internet site.

2:17 – 2:32 pm EST – The Heading Left Show on BlogTalk Radio – Hosted by James Boyce (Huffington Post blogger) and Nate Wilcox – JK will be interviewed on the show. Calls in, visit the website to get the phone number for call ins and listen to the show live via streaming or after the fact via podcast.

 

From: John Kerry

Subject: Set a Deadline

Action Item: Co-sponsor my legislation to establish a firm deadline to redeploy most American troops from Iraq. Visit setadeadline.com.

Dear johnkerry.com community,

As you know I’m not leading a campaign for the presidency in 2008. Instead I have chosen to campaign to end the war in Iraq and protect America.

Yesterday I stood up with a remarkable group of Iraq war veterans who are speaking out because they believe the best way to support the troops is to change a course that squanders their lives. When brave patriots suffer and die because of the incompetence of mere politicians, the only patriotic choice is to demand change.

These veterans offered a profile in courage.

The Senate this week provided a profile in politics – Republicans blocking even a vote up or down, one way or another on a bi-partisan resolution opposing the Bush escalation.

This has to end.

Republicans refuse even to go on record over the Bush escalation. We need to escalate the pressure for a policy change.

That’s why I am introducing legislation that will again set a firm one-year deadline for the redeployment of most American troops from Iraq.

If you agree it is time to set a deadline, come to www.setadeadline.com and become a citizen co-sponsor of the legislation.

In addition to setting a deadline, my legislation includes key recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, many of which we have been advocating for some time. It will:

• launch a major diplomatic initiative, the only hope for a sustainable resolution in Iraq
• enforce a series of benchmarks to hold Iraqis accountable for meeting key political objectives
• change the American military mission to training Iraqi security forces and counter-terrorism operations
• maintain an over the horizon presence to protect American regional interests.

Learn more about the legislation at www.setadeadline.com

Now that a new Democratic Congressional majority has convened in the U.S. Capitol, a deadline must be set. The President must respect the real needs of our troops and the will of the American people.

Step by step, we will ensure that he does.

Co-sign the legislation: www.setadeadline.com

Thank you,

John Kerry

 

JK joined Sen. Murphy Murray, Reed and Whitehouse this morning in speaking out with the VoteVets organization. He noted that US troops have been shortchanged on equipment and cheated by contracting fraud.

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. John Kerry today joined with veterans of the Iraq war as he called upon the Bush Administration to reconsider the “ill-conceived” escalation of the war in Iraq and demanded that Congressional Republicans agree to a full debate on the president’s planned escalation. Kerry made his comments during an appearance with members of the VoteVets group, which is lobbying members of Congress to stand against the Bush escalation plan. Kerry also said that he will push for a vote for his resolution setting a firm one-year deadline for the withdrawal of most US troops out of Iraq. That plan calls for an immediate diplomatic effort to engage the key players in the region, while simultaneously working with the Iraqi police forces to prepare them for assuming a greater role in the security of their country.

“This war is bad news and we should be looking at ways to bring it to an end, not escalate it by sending another 21,000 troops into Baghdad with no real plan for bringing about peace,” Kerry said today. “The problem in Iraq needs to be sorted out by Iraqis and our soldiers have no business trying to play referee in a nasty civil war between different factions. Nearly four years into this war, many of the men and women of our military are in Iraq without up-armored vehicles, without proper equipment, without sufficient radios or other supplies that they need to protect themselves. That’s simply unacceptable.”

Kerry noted that recent audits have shown that money intended to help stabilize Iraq instead went for – among other things – an Olympic size swimming pool, VIP trailers, vehicles that can’t be accounted for and a training camp for Iraqi police that hasn’t been used in months.

Beachmom has more on the press conference in a diary over at dailykos.

 

UPDATE: JK released a statement after his brief press appearance today at noon. Click on ‘Continue Reading’ and scroll down for the statement.

We all know the saying—A picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s more proof.

Adriana Lins de Albuquerque, a doctoral student in political science at Columbia, and Alicia Cheng, a graphic designer at mgmt.design in Brooklyn, put together a pictorial chart of the casualties in Iraq in the month of January for which the New York Times devoted almost an entire page in the OP-ED section.

From the NYTimes intro to the chart:

In January more than 1,900 people - soldiers, security officer and civilians - were killed in the insurgency in Iraq, up from 800 in January 2006. Many corpses showed signs of torture, meaning the victims were probably killed by religious and tribal death squads.

The map below, based on data from the American, British and Iraqi governments and from news reports, shows the dates, locations and circumstances of deaths for the first month of the year. Given the vast size of Iraq and the communications difficulties inherent in war, the information may be incomplete. Nonetheless, it is our effort to visually depict the continuing human cost of the Iraq war.

Below is a reduced graphic of the chart. A full-size graphic is available here though you’ll need your horizontal and vertical scroll bars.

Check out a close up of a section of the chart and the legend on the flip side.   <!-more-> They conveyed a tremendous amount of info in the chart. The legend for the graphic symbols helps a lot in deciphering what’s in there.

Here’s the center of the chart:

It’s sobering when you look back at the full-size page and realize that essentially the bottom half of the page represents casualties in one city, Baghdad.

I encourage you to visit setadeadline.com now and sign up as a citizen sponsor of JK’s bill to set a deadline in the Iraq war.

And look for JK’s press conference at noon today on setting a one year deadline for troop redeployment from Iraq.

We’ll add an update here.

UPDATE: JK released a statement after his brief press appearance today at noon.

Kerry Calls On Senate to Set One Year Deadline
for US Troops to Leave Iraq

Says Diplomatic Initiative, Firm Benchmarks for Iraqi Leaders Must be Part of Strategy

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. John Kerry today said he is introducing legislation that would include many of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and set a firm deadline for the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq. Kerry said the other key elements of his bill are: launching a major diplomatic initiative, enforcing a series of benchmarks for meeting key political objectives, shifting the military mission to training Iraqi security forces and counter-terrorism operations, and maintaining on over the horizon presence to protect U.S. regional interests.

“The only people who believe there is a workable military solution for the conflict in Iraq is The Bush Administration,” Kerry said. “We must find a way to force the Iraqi politicians to make the tough compromises necessary to find a sustainable political solution. It’s time to sponsor a regional effort aimed at using diplomacy to achieve peace. We can’t pull the plug on our efforts in Iraq overnight, nor can we endlessly debate continuing the status quo into the next decade. My plan offers a rock solid deadline that forces Iraqis to step up their responsibilities while redirecting the mission of US troops to training, counter-terrorism and force protection.”

“The president is asking Congress to approve another $245 billion to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have little to show for our effort in Iraq and the president and Republicans in Congress are attempting to prevent us from debating this issue on the floor of the Senate. The American people aren’t interested in 60-vote minimums. They want to see the leaders in Washington have a plan for moving our brave men and women out of the chaotic civil war in Iraq.”

The legislation is based on Kerry’s bill from last year, which also called for creating a firm one year deadline for the redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq, leaving only the minimum number necessary to complete the training of Iraqi security forces, go after terrorists, and protect United States facilities and personnel. In December, the Iraq Study Group set a goal of withdrawing United States combat forces from Iraq within a year. This date was based upon the timeframe for transferring responsibility to Iraqi security forces set forth by George W. Casey Jr., and on the schedule agreed upon by the Iraqi government for achieving key political and security objectives. It is also consistent with the President’s stated objective, worked out with the Iraqi government, of transferring full security responsibility to the Iraqis by November of 2007. Senator Kerry continues to believe that setting a firm one year deadline is necessary to make that goal a reality.

 

Here’s a couple LTE’s that JK bloggers have had published recently…

In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Kerry’s decision

I am saddened to hear that Sen. John Kerry has decided not to take another shot at the presidency right now (“Kerry Passes on Presidential Run to Oppose War,” Jan. 25). His entrance into the race would have added the much-needed dimension of statesmanship and expertise into the debates on foreign policy and domestic issues.

I held out hope that perhaps this election, we would vote for a candidate on merit and experience and not whether we wanted to have a beer or dine with him. Sen. Kerry’s campaign in 2004 was a tough one as he took on a wartime president. It wasn’t the Swift Boat smears or the other minor things that led to his defeat; it was the fear card, played so well by our current administration. The public didn’t know Sen. Kerry well enough to “change horses in midstream.”

However, his decision not to run in what is shaping up to be a three-ring circus is probably the smartest thing to do right now. Now he doesn’t have to worry about omitting a word from a sentence. He has more important things to focus on like bringing our fighting men and women home from Iraq. This is a lofty goal, and he takes it on because he cares about America and our soldiers.

A great opportunity for America was lost in 2004 when Sen. Kerry lost his bid for the presidency, and we are out another chance to get it right—for now. The senator, however, is going to continue to fight to get it right for America.

—from Margaret in Greensburg

and here’s another that was just published in the Boston Globe:

February 4, 2007

Once and for all, don’t blame Kerry

ELLEN GOODMAN’S gratuitous slap against John Kerry’s presidential candidacy (“Mitt’s turnaround,” Op-ed, Feb. 2) omitted two salient points. First, Senator Kerry faced difficult political odds in 2004. Second, Kerry would have made a very fine president.

A number of deluded and self-serving Democrats have chosen to blame Kerry, but not themselves, for the election outcome. But they neglect to mention that the 2004 election would have been tough for any Democratic nominee. Kerry ran an uphill battle against a sitting wartime president, with the additional political burden of a dysfunctional Democratic party and an inattentive electorate confused and cowed by fear. Even with these handicaps, he almost won. Kerry deserves our gratitude, not insults, for his valiant efforts.

They say that great leaders arise in times of crisis. But democracy adds a crucial condition: Citizens must recognize the leaders in their midst and lift them up. We had our chance in 2004 to put a first-rate president, a man with depth, courage, and integrity, into the White House, but we blew it. We, not Kerry, should be ashamed.

—from Mary Beth in Cambridge

Thanks Margaret and Mary Beth for speaking up.

Are there any other good LTE’s out there that we’ve missed? Have you written one that’s been published?

Please share it with us in the comments.

 

Here’s part II of “Fighting Global Warming”.

JK spoke at a hearing held by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works earlier this week and below is an excerpt from the hearing. Sen. Barbara Boxer convened the full committee for a hearing entitled “Senators’ Perspectives on Global Warming.” More more detail on the hearing is available at the committee website.

One interesting interaction came just before JK spoke at the hearing. Sen. Tom Carper asked Sen. Boxer if he could say a few words and proceeded to say:

CARPER: I want to welcome Senator Feinstein and Senator Kerry to this hearing, to our committee. ... And I’d just say to Senator Kerry, my friend, my old Navy buddy, that I think you were - and I’ve said this to you before - I think you were ahead in your time in 2004 when you ran for president with a huge focus on energy independence and a great road map to get us there. There’s an old saying, “A prophet is without honor in his own land.” You were a prophet, and the rest of us unfortunately just a few years behind you. But thank you for joining us today and for your leadership.

That’s probably not news to those who pay close attention to what JK says but it is nice to see it acknowledged in the Senate. And now, onto the rest of what JK has had to say lately about global warming and what we should be doing to address it.

 

Excerpt of Testimony before
the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee
on January 30, 2007

BOXER: Senator Kerry, we are honored you’re here. You have 10 minutes.

KERRY: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Thank you, Senator Carper, for your comments. I appreciate it, and look forward to working with you.

Madam Chairman, thank you so much for having this hearing. It’s wonderful to have a chair of this committee particularly who is looking at this issue and wanting to move forward.

I just came back from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, and it’s interesting that this was really the dominant issue on the table among businessmen and leaders all over the world, and it was the centerpiece of Prime Minister Blair’s comments to the plenary session there. So everyone in the world is looking to the United States now. We’re 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. We have a responsibility to act. And like it or not, no matter what happens, yes, we need a global solution but, if the United States doesn’t act, there won’t be a solution.

I thank you for the conversations we’ve had. We’re going to have some hearings in the Small Business Committee to see how small business can proceed, and also in the Commerce Committee on which you serve, and you’ll sort of have a double hat to wear in that capacity. But we’re going to use every leverage we have here to move on this.

Back in 1987 - yes, 1987 - on the Commerce Committee under the leadership of then-Senator Gore, we held the first hearings on global climate change. And then in 1990 we held an inter-parliamentary conference with Senator Worth, Senator Chafee and others, trying to raise the profile of this issue. In 1992 - and I mention this history because I want to emphasize the urgency and why we’re here - in ‘92 I was a member of the delegation that went with those same folks to Rio for the Earth Summit, and we came together with about 170 nations or so to discuss various ways to tackle this problem back then.

We came up with a voluntary framework, the international framework on climate change, which President George Herbert Walker Bush signed, we ratified, but it was voluntary. Nations were given an opportunity to participate, and we set in process a series of meetings, several of which I attended. I went to Buenos Aires for the COP meeting. I went to The Hague for the COP meeting, and we began to see the tensions between the less developed countries and the developed countries and the near developed countries, and the struggle to try to get this passed.

I managed the Kyoto agreement issue on the floor of the Senate when the Byrd-Hagel resolution came up, and we accepted the notion that, yes, we want less developed countries in, but we as a nation never made an effort during those years to try to bring less developed countries to the table by working agreements with them for technology transfer, for recognition of the steps they were taking, for fuel switching and other things.

And so the bottom line is nothing happened. We’re here in 2006, 16 years or so after these meetings, and almost 20 years after the first hearings, and the United States, some are still in denial and we’re still not proceeding forward. <!-more-> The American people are moving ahead of the Congress, which is astonishing and a sad statement about Congressional irresponsibility. Three hundred seventy six mayors from 50 states have signed on to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement to advance the goals of Kyoto. And now we have mounting scientific evidence, which will be capped in a report that will come forward from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change written by more than 600 scientists, Madam Chairman, reviewed by another 600 experts, and edited by officials from 154 governments to reflect the scientific consensus, and already it’s being called “The smoking gun of global warming” by those who have studied it.

The basic facts are that, at every point in between the two Poles of this planet, the Earth’s surface is heating up, and at a catastrophic rate. According to the 2001 IPCC report, we’ve already increased an average of 1.4 degrees, about 0.8 degrees centigrade. With what’s in the atmosphere today, there is an inevitable increase - we can’t do anything about it - up to about 1.4, 1.5 degrees.

Scientists now tell us by consensus recent discussions with Jim Hanson, with John Holdren at Harvard and Woods Hole, say that we really only have a latitude of about 0.6 degrees. You’ve got to hold the Earth’s temperature increase to 2 degrees centigrade, or we have catastrophic contact (ph). A few years ago they thought it was 3 degrees. A few years ago they thought we should hold it to 550 parts per million, but now they realize we’ve got to hold it to 450 parts per million to hold it down to 2 degrees because of what we’ve already seen in terms of the destruction that’s taking place.

In 2005, 98; 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, were respectfully the six warmest years on record and all but one of the hottest 20 years on record have occurred since 1980, since the time they started measuring. We know this is the result of human activity, and we also know that carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased about 30 percent from the pre-industrial level of 270 parts per million. It’s currently at 370 parts per million.

So, Madam Chairman, that means we have the latitude of going from 370 to 450, and this is the highest level of concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at any time in the past 150,000 years. If we let it go the way it is now, it could reach 600 to 700 parts per million, and there will be catastrophe.

Now, here’s the bottom line. Those who oppose doing something serious, as John Holdren says, to be credible, they have to explain what alternative mechanism could account for the pattern of changes being observed, and they have to explain how it could be that the known human-caused buildup in greenhouse gases is not having an impact. So they have to show those two things, what’s causing it? Why is what we’ve done not causing it? And they have failed to even suggest a legitimate theory for either of those.

BOXER: (OFF-MIKE)

KERRY: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate that.

So we’re seeing these changes all over the country. I’ve just been finishing writing a book about not just this but all the environmental challenges we face today, toxins, water, oceans, et cetera. But as I read about this, after 22 years in the Senate, I have to tell you it became more and more ominous, more and more frightening, more and more urgent and compelling than anything I’ve read in all the time I’ve been here, with the exception of a couple of security reports. But this is national security.

You’ve got hunters noticing these changes in Arkansas. The winter duck population has shrunk from a million to half a million over the past half-century. Last year, drought dropped that population to 160,000. In South Carolina they wouldn’t have duck hunting now if it weren’t for farm-raised ducks, and the population of migrant ducks is down to about 3,000. the number of category four and five hurricanes has nearly doubled in the last years. As John Holdren and others will tell you, climate change is the envelope within which all the other changes take place, species change, climate, winds, hurricanes, ocean temperature, and there is this ominous notion of a tipping point, which we have to avoid.

So the bottom line is, Madam Chairwoman, the only way to avoid the catastrophe that they warn us of, the ice in the oceans in the Arctic is going to melt. Jim Hanson sat with me several months ago and said it’s no longer a question of if, when or how. It’s just a question of it’s going to happen, probably 30 years from now. What happens is that ice melts, that more ocean is exposed. As more ocean is exposed, the hearing of the sun has a greater impact on the warming of the ocean, which has a greater impact ultimately on the Greenland ice Sheet.

Now, we’re already seeing melting underneath that ice sheet on the top of the rock, and the potential for slippage of that rock and major break-off like the one we saw on Ellesmere Island a few months ago - actually a year and a half ago it was detected, but it was reported recently - where you had a 66-kilometer square ice sheet that just broke off and is now floating as its own island in the ocean.

The ice in the Arctic as it melts doesn’t change the displacement of the ocean, so sea level rise is not as much of an issue, though it’s going to increase. But if the Greenland ice sheet melts, you’ve got something ranging between a 16 and 23-foot seal level increase, which wipes out all the ports and lowlands and islands globally.

The impact of this on poor people, the impact of this on commerce, on species, on disease and all kinds of things is gigantic. So, Madam Chairwoman, the bottom line is the reason I mention all this, I know it’s accepted. I know the science is accepted - Senator Bingaman said it - but the urgency is not accepted up here. The urgency is just not accepted. There are business leaders who are showing greater urgency, the recent 10 corporations that announced what they’re going to do than the Congress of the United States is or than our government is. And there is only one way to deal with this issue. It is carbon dioxide that is the principal greenhouse gas emission that is causing—there are other greenhouse gases, but that’s the principal one, and you have to cap the level of these greenhouse gas initiatives. It’s the only way to do it. Now, Senator Snow and I introduced legislation last year to achieve this. We’re going to reintroduce it. We establish an economy-wide cap-and-tra de program to reduce these emissions, and we’ll set that out further later this week. But I remember being part of this debate in 1990 with John Sununu, George Mitchell, Bill Reilly and others at the table into the wee hours of the morning.

And I remember the industry sitting there saying to us if you do this, it’s going to cost $8 billion and it’s going to take 10 years, and you’re going to ruin the industry. And the environment community said, no, no, no, no, it won’t do that. If you do it, it’ll take $4 billion and it would be done in about four years, and it won’t ruin the industry.

Well, guess what? Both were wrong. It was done at about half the cost the environmental industry said it would, and in half the time. Why? Because no one was able to predict what happens when you start down the road and the technology begins to make advances, and technology begets technology and begets advances that we are not capable of predicting, which is why we need to make this commitment.

The fact is there are only three big ways of doing this. Number one, energy efficiency. There are enormous gains to be made in our country in terms of energy efficiency, and DuPont and General Electric and a host of companies are recognizing this and grabbing the profits. This is a for-profit effort, and we need to get people to realize this isn’t just sacrifice. This is an ability to take the lead on health, on the environment, on jobs, on national security as well as the ability to live up to our obligation morally for the next generation. So you get about give major pluses. There are few public policy choices where you get that.

The final comment I’d make, Madam Chairwoman, let me pose this to you. There are two sides here. There are sides of people who are still obstructing, still saying no, still fighting this, status quoists, and they refuse to accept some of even the science now, then, there are those fighting to make it happen. Well, what’s the downside of accepting the predictions of the Stern report that says we can do this at 1 percent of GDP and the costs of not doing it are five to twentyfold times more expensive than the cost of doing it?

So I ask colleagues in the Senate and I ask Americans, simple question. If the people who think climate change is a serious problem are wrong, and we take the steps to deal with it, what’s the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is we have cleaner air, a healthier nation, more jobs created. We lead the world in technology. We’ve made ourselves more energy independent, and we have a better environment.

What’s the worst that can happen if the people who say it’s not happening would want to stop it? What’s the worst if they’re wrong? Catastrophe, absolute catastrophe. So the question for the United States Senate, for the Congress, for the country, is which side of the ledger do we want to fall on, and I think the answer to that is pretty clear.

BOXER: Senator Kerry, I want to thank you for your excellent contribution to this. You gave us the overview that I certainly agree with. I mean, it’s a very simple thing. If you do the right thing, the conservative thing, really, the conservative thing is to say the worst could happen. Let’s prepare. You get five or six tremendous benefits, starting with the health of our families, saving in their pocketbooks and the rest. Profits for industry, jobs we can export, a safer world because we don’ t have to rely on folks we don’t want to rely on, and you wait it out.

So that’s why I hope we can really come together, and with your help I honestly think that we can do it.

KERRY: I forgot two things I just wanted to add, closing out.

BOXER: Please go ahead, yes.

KERRY: In addition to the energy efficiency, Madam Chairwoman, obviously the clean and alternative fuels are something everybody’s talking about, but we’ve got to be a little bit careful about where the major input is put into that, because there’s huge land use, water issues and energy issues, consumption issues, and the focus on just ethanol, not cellulosic.

And secondly, we have to look carefully at the clean coal technology issue and sequestration. There are serious questions about how much sequestration you can actually achieve, and we have to push forward on it. Those are the three big ones, and those are the places we’re going to get the greatest grab in the shortest time. If we accept the science, and I think we’re duty bound to do it, that you only have a 10-year window. If there’s a 10-year window, and I think we have a moral responsibility to accept that, then you’ve got to grab the biggest pieces the fastest you can, as you know.

BOXER: Right. We call it the low hanging fruit, and there’s a lot of it around. I mean, the terrible news is we’ve done so little. The good news is we’ve done so little it’s easy to start. That’s really kind of where we are. We’ve just got to start and get out of our paralysis.

Well, Senator, I also thank you for making the distinction between alternative fuels and renewable fuels because, when the president talked about alternatives, we don’t know that they’re clean. We don’t know that they’ll necessarily help us with the greenhouse gas emissions. So there’s lots of things we have to be wary of. Obviously you are a leader on this. You have been a leader for many years, and I am very pleased. We’ll work together both on the legislation that will come before this committee, as well as in the Commerce Committee, where we can really work together on fuel economy and the rest.

So I think it’s going to be a good year for us. We’re going to move forward. I thank you for your contribution.

KERRY: My pleasure. Thank you very much.

- end of excerpt -

 

There’s been lots in the news about Global Warming over the last few days. The UN Climate Panel issued its report yesterday, an update on a report last issued in 2001. The Washington Post reported that the panel, “which groups 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted more droughts, heatwaves, rains and a slow gain in sea levels that could last for more than 1,000 years. The scientists said it was “very likely” - or more than 90 percent probable - that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years.”

Two memorable quotes from the article:

“February 2, 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether (people) are to blame for climate change,” said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program.

“Faced with this emergency, now is not the time for half measures. It is the time for a revolution, in the true sense of the term,” French President Jacques Chirac said. “We are in truth on the historical doorstep of the irreversible.”

JK and Sen. Olympia Snowe yesterday “reintroduced their aggressive bipartisan legislation to reduce the emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.”

The “Global Warming Reduction Act” sets forceful greenhouse gas emissions targets that leading scientists say are the best way to keep temperatures below the danger point. Besides just capping pollution, the Kerry-Snowe plan promotes incentives to buy efficient products that reduce greenhouse gas emissions for American homes, businesses and roads.

Kerry and Snowe also announced that they would hold a hearing on the role of small business in slowing climate change in the next few weeks, in their capacity as the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

“It’s time to take serious action on this issue. Our bill does that by proposing the most far-reaching, bipartisan plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions, to create new and enhanced tax credits for ordinary Americans who invest in energy-efficient technologies and offer new funds for research and development on cleaner, more efficient vehicles,” said Kerry.

“Although President Bush just noticed that the earth is heating up, the American public, every reputable scientist and other world leaders have long recognized that global warming is real and it’s serious. The time to act is now.”

“The issue of global warming is no longer a question of science - it is now a question of political will,” Snowe said.  “Global warming is a comprehensive problem that demands a comprehensive solution.  The Global Warming Reduction Act is that solution. It is realistic, aggressive, science based approach to tackling this issue without putting a stranglehold on our economy.   This legislation is the right course at the right cost, and we can no longer afford the price of inaction.”

Global Warming Reduction Act Highlights:

• Requires that the U.S. freeze emissions in 2010 and then calls for a gradual reduction each year to 65 percent below 2000 emissions levels by 2050. The bill achieves these targets through a flexible, economy-wide cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions.
• Provides immediate incentives to reduce emissions, producing direct results in the near-term.
• Requires that passenger vehicles reduce their global warming pollution.
• Includes measures to advance technology and reduce emissions through clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency in the transportation, industrial and residential sectors.
• Requires the US to derive 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
• Includes a resolution expressing the urgent need for President Bush to re-engage in international climate negotiations.
• Establishes a National Climate Change Vulnerability and Resilience Program to help communities assess their vulnerability to climatic changes and shorter term climatic variations – including changes and variations resulting from human activities – and better prepare for it.

  <!-more-> For JK this is a consistent stance. Here’s the record of the vote on Climate Change in the Senate on July 25, 1997. JK spoke on the Senate floor about this resolution which he co-sponsored. The speech is longer but here is a short excerpt:

Let me point out one other fact that was set forth at the hearings we had in the committee.

We know that we are the world’s greatest emitter of greenhouse gases. We know that carbon dioxide is the most significant of those. We know that the oceans mitigate the increase of carbon dioxide that we put into the atmosphere. The oceans consume the carbon dioxide.

But what we have also learned as a matter of science is that there is some level at which there is this potential of saturation of the oceans. We do not know where that is. The oceans re-circulate it. And the question remains whether or not you might have an extraordinary, dramatic impact because of the reaching of this saturation point.

Some people may want to tempt that. Some people may not feel any kind of generational responsibility or any kind of global responsibility and suggest that, well, all of these thousands of scientists, all of the consensus reached by 155 nations—they may want to choose to ignore it.

But when scientists tell me that the oceans are already rising and they are already rising at a discernible and measurable rate and that we are continuing a process of warming and that between now and the middle of the next century oceans will rise 1 to 3 feet and that the impact of that will be devastation on the coast of Florida, the loss of island nations, and the remarkable impact on wetlands all around the planet, I think we have a responsibility to say, well, we ought to try to think about that. And that is exactly what this effort to deal with global climate change is trying to do.

Now, I am not going to debate all of the science and the models and what can or cannot be done here. But it is clear that one of the chief sponsors of this resolution, Senator Byrd-and you have heard him speak-agrees, and Senator Lieberman and Chafee and others do, that the prospect of human-induced global warming as an accepted thesis with adverse consequences for all is here, and it is real.

JK has spoken out consistently on global warming for a long time.

In Part II, we’ll share some of what he had to say during Sen. Boxer’s hearing on global warming and how to address climate change, held earlier this week on Jan. 30th.

 

There have been many candidates in the last week for another JK on the blogs roundup which is coming, I promise. But today, I want to call your attention to a tour de force diary by AllDemsOnBoard at dailykos.

This in-depth review of JK’s life’s work is worth the time and I’ll guarantee you’ll learn something you didn’t know.

For instance, there’s the in-depth review of the 1991 Iraq War resolution debate and then there’s the insight into the Pepperdine speech. Then there’s MTD—you’ll definitely want to check out the definition of MTD.

So go enjoy this diary and then come back here and let us know about other items you’ve been reading in the blogosphere that the rest of us should check out.

 

There are many people in our nation who see the folly of escalation in Iraq and have spoken out against. We’ve lost one of our brightest and certainly most irreverently humorous voices in that choir.

The DCP blog introduced her last column written at the beginning of January this way:

“Brave warriors come in all shapes and sizes. Some fight with swords, some with pens. One of the bravest of the pen-fighters lost her final battle yesterday, when Molly Ivins passed away after a years-long and painful struggle with cancer. She kept on fighting right until the very end. And in her final column, published on January 11 of this year, she charged us all to do the same.”

<!-more->

Stand Up Against the Surge

by Molly Ivins

The purpose of this old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war is not to make George W. Bush look like the dumbest president ever. ...the challenge with this misbegotten adventure is that WE simply cannot let it continue. 

It is not a matter of whether we will lose or we are losing. We have lost. Gen. John P. Abizaid, until recently the senior commander in the Middle East, insists that the answer to our problems there is not military. "You have to internationalize the problem. You have to attack it diplomatically, geo-strategically," he said.

His assessment is supported by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who only recommend releasing forces with a clear definition of the goals for the additional troops.

[...]

A surge is not acceptable to the people in this country — we have voted overwhelmingly against this war in polls (about 80 percent of the public is against escalation, and a recent Military Times poll shows only 38 percent of active military want more troops sent) and at the polls.

We know this is wrong. The people understand, the people have the right to make this decision, and the people have the obligation to make sure our will is implemented.

[...]

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge… We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “Stop it, now!”

  Thanks Molly for all the laughs and truths delivered with your Texas twang. We’ll keep on with the fight to set a deadline and get our troops out of Iraq.