“…according to the National Research Council, wind turbines account for less than 0.003% of bird deaths caused by human activities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service estimates that wind turbines kill 150,000 - 200,000 birds annually. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of birds are killed every year by collisions with buildings, cars, and power lines. And many more are killed by oilfield production pits and coal mining, which has destroyed numerous bird habitats.

“A 2009 comparison of the impact of six electricity generation types on wildlife in New England found that wind power poses “no population-level risks to birds.” Factoring in the effects of pollution and climate change, it concluded that “non-renewable electricity generation sources, such as coal and oil, pose higher risks to wildlife than renewable electricity generation sources, such as hydro and wind.”…”

“…the bankers of yore operated by building relationships; Bain made its investors money in large part by breaking relationships, e.g. by walking away from implicit promises to workers. It’s not a style that makes for good diplomacy.”

Heh.

…The normal, cautious thing is to say that there’s no way to attribute any particular event, like a heat wave in the Ukraine, to global warming — and news media have basically been bullied by this argument into rarely mentioning climate change even when reporting on extreme weather. But Hansen et al make an important point: this argument is much weaker when we’re talking about really extreme events, like temperatures more than 3 standard deviations above historical norms. Such events would almost never happen if there weren’t a rising trend in global temperatures; so when they become quite common, as they have, it’s fair to call them evidence of warming.

The second point is how we know that climate change is a bad thing — a question I sometimes get asked. The questioners wonder why the fact that, say, more of Canada becomes agriculturally viable doesn’t offset the damage in places that get too hot.

My first-pass answer is that we have a global economy that is adapted to historically normal climate — not just in terms of what is grown where, but in terms of where we locate our cities. In the long run, after a couple of centuries’ worth of urban development and infrastructure has been drowned by rising sea levels and/or made useless because previously habitable regions need to be abandoned, we might be able to reconstruct an equally productive economy; but in the long run …

But Hansen et al make a stronger point: life as we know it evolved to fit the historical range of planetary temperatures. In the long run it might be able to adapt to a changed world — but now we’re talking millions of years.

In the long run, we are all extinct.

Growth of real hourly compensation (inclusive of benefits) for production / nonsupervisory workers and productivity, 1948-2011.

…

I get a bit annoyed when people claim that we can’t “afford” more government intervention or, god-forbid, single-payer. That kind of statement willfully ignores the fact that every country that has MORE government intervention spends LESS.

I get a bit annoyed by the claim that an expansion of government insurance leads to lines and waiting when lots of countries have universal access and less of a wait-time problem than we do. Moreover, almost no one makes this argument when we expand private insurance, only government.

I get a bit annoyed by blanket claims that doctors won’t accept Medicaid. Such statements often ignore the fact that the majority of Medicaid beneficiaries are children and pregnant women. We don’t need all types of doctors to accept Medicaid patients in equal numbers. They also ignore the fact that lots of doctors won’t accept new patients with Medicare or private insurance, either.

I get a bit annoyed when people just claim government programs are “unpopular”. Like Medicare? I don’t think so. Is there any evidence that Medicaid is unpopular? I’d like to see it. Personally, I think that the fact that (a) all 50 states have bought in over time and (b) the Supreme Court just ruled that threatening to take it away is “coercive” speaks to the opposite. Additionally, polling shows the opposite of what Tyler (and lots of others) suggest.

I get a bit annoyed at the blanket acceptance of the awesomeness of the free market in health care, when there is no phenomenal evidence of its success. And again, those countries with less free market are cheaper, universal, and often just as good. So why are we always trying to run away from them?

Look, I get that people may not like the political implications of those systems. They may not like the governments that produce them. They may not like the lack of choice inherent in such systems. They may not like the potential  limitations within them for making money, and therefore for innovation. But we need to stop making stuff up about them.

…Now 84, the American academic has dedicated most of his life to the study of the bold, some might say reckless, idea that nonviolence — rather than violence — is the most effective way of overthrowing corrupt, repressive regimes….

…His practical manual on how to overthrow dictatorships, “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” has spread like a virus since he wrote it 20 years ago and has been translated by activists into more than 30 languages.

He has also listed “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action” — powerful, sometimes surprising, ways to tear power from the hands of regimes. Examples of their use by demonstrators and revolutionaries pop up over and over again….

As Mohandas Gandhi said, “”Things undreamt of are daily being seen, the impossible is ever becoming possible. We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence.”

We haven’t even begun to explore a world without war. for instance, tho’ it’s visibly more achievable ever sooner . .. :)

“…Since 2001, at least half of Americans have consistently chosen the middle position, saying abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, and the 52% saying this today is similar to the 50% in May 2011. The 25% currently wanting abortion to be legal in all cases and the 20% in favor of making it illegal in all cases are also similar to last year’s findings…” 

So a large majority—77 percent—of Americans support abortion being legal in all or “certain circumstances,” and just 20 percent of Americans are actually “pro-life” in the sense that opponents of legalized abortion understand the term. Another way of saying this is that most Americans are actually pro-choice even if they sometimes identify as pro-life. In fact, there are more Americans who think abortion should be legal in all circumstances (25 percent) than think it should be illegal in all circumstances (20 percent)….

…in that time, have the Left’s policies and expectations tacked consistently towards the 1972/GOP Right…or has the Left seized America’s guns?

Have we outlawed religion?

Has the Democratic Party moved to make abortion 100% legal and government funded through the ninth month of pregnancy, no questions asked?

Is pot cheap, legal and available over-the-counter at every CVS and Piggly Wiggly?

Have we sold off our last battleship?

Are our schools impossibly well-funded?

Does every citizen have free, lifetime health care?

Does every building sport solar panels?

Is gay marriage legal everywhere?

Have we nationalized our banks and oil companies?

Do we tax the rich at 98%?

Is there an 18 month paid parental leave by law? And three months of mandatory paid vacation?

Is there a $22/hr minimum wage?

Is union membership now mandatory?

Are fully half of the Democratic members Congress stocked open and committed Socialists?

Are a quarter of the Democratic members Congress stocked open and committed Communists?

No.

None of these things have happened.

And yet unless all of these things and more were true, there is simply no comparison between the slow, depressing rightward slog of the Left over the last 40 years…

…and the rage-fueled, anti-science, anti-environment, anti-woman, anti-freedom, anti-Middle Class bullet train to Crazytown that the Right has been on during this same period…

…Where did the productivity go?

The answer is, it’s two-thirds the inequality, stupid. One third of the difference is due to a technical issue involving price indexes. The rest, however, reflects a shift of income from labor to capital and, within that, a shift of labor income to the top and away from the middle.

What this says is that widening inequality makes a huge difference. Income stagnation does not reflect overall economic stagnation; the incomes of typical workers would be 30 or 40 percent higher than they are if inequality hadn’t soared.