Michael Hoexter, Ph.D. Listen Donald, Becoming President-elect was a grand coup for you, yet, with the path of climate denial and destruction you are headed on as President, you will be personally responsible for some extremely bad, real impacts on all Americans, even on all human beings, making you and them big “losers”. It is no longer a matter of you playing a game for yourself in which you might be a “winner” but it means protecting and taking care of the destinies of all Americans,...
Read More »Myron Ebell, Trump’s Nihilistic EPA Selection, Soft-peddled by the New York Times
Michael Hoexter, Ph.D. The US press has generally played a dismal role in warning people of the imminent dangers of climate breakdown and upcoming thresholds beyond which humanity may not survive as an organized species or a species at all. The media should be every day reporting on both the record breaking temperatures of 2016 as well as alarming changes in the surface of the earth that have resulted and will likely result from the enormous heat. Questions for the recent 2016 US...
Read More »Living in the Web of Soft Climate Denial
Michael Hoexter, Ph.D. Contents Conventional “Hard” Climate Denial A Web of Soft Climate Denial The Foundations of Soft Climate Denial in Economics Settling on Neoliberal, “Market-Based” Carbon Gradualism Soft Climate Denial, Fossil Fuels, and the Hedonic Self 1. Conventional “Hard” Climate Denial The Rio Olympics opening ceremony highlighted global warming as a major theme of international concern even on an occasion of diversion from the cares of the world. That most Brazilians...
Read More »Democratic Party Platform 7/1/16 Draft Would Lock In Catastrophic Climate Change
Michael Hoexter, Ph.D. The Brexit vote is being taken by some commentators as a sign that the basic competence of leadership groups throughout Western countries is in question. Unfortunately not enough media attention has been paid, public concern raised, and action taken about the most massive and long-standing failure of the political leadership classes, a failure to protect by governments that threatens humanity itself. Governments and government leaders have failed to lead on climate...
Read More »COP21 and Beyond: Outlines of an Actually-Effective International Climate Policy Architecture
By Michael Hoexter In this series, I attempt to outline key issues facing policymakers as they meet in Paris at the UN’s Conference of the Parties-21 starting on November 30th and possibly culminating in a global climate treaty by the end of the conference on December 11th, called a “deadline” by the organizers. COP21 is being viewed as a last chance for humanity to seriously address climate change in concert and therefore face humanity’s most serious and ominous existential crisis. Human...
Read More »Road to COP21 and Beyond: The Missing Analysis of the Kyoto Protocol and its Failure
By Michael Hoexter In this series, I will attempt to outline key issues facing policymakers as they meet in Paris at the UN’s Conference of the Parties-21 starting on November 30th and possibly culminating in a global climate treaty by the end of the conference on December 11th, called a “deadline” by the organizers. COP21 is being viewed as a last chance for humanity to seriously address climate change in concert and therefore face humanity’s most serious and ominous existential crisis. ...
Read More »Yes, ExxonMobil Committed “Unparalleled Evil” Yet that Evil Can Distract From Taking Action
By Michael Hoexter In a series of revelations over the past three months, the Pulitzer Prize winning website Inside Climate News has revealed what may be the greatest crime of the 20th and the 21st Centuries. Via interviews and archival research, ICN recovered irrefutable evidence that Exxon scientists (and then ExxonMobil) had an extensive climate research program in the late 1970’s and 1980’s and came to the conclusions that fossil fuel use would lead to heating of the atmosphere, a...
Read More »Why Shouldn’t the US Federal Government Invest $4-$6 Trillion Per Year on Climate Protection? (Part 2 of 2)
By Michael Hoexter Part I | Part II 4. “We shouldn’t invest $4 to $6 Trillion per year more in federal dollars to save humanity because we already have carbon pricing instruments that are doing the job and are still under attack from opponents of climate action. We should stand by, applaud, and not “rock the boat” because serious climate policy makers are only talking about carbon pricing (cap and trade or carbon taxation) and not your full-scale mobilization proposal with its high price...
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