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Cross-posted from DailyKos. I wrote this live, but had a long drive before to get more internet access.

I’m at Dartmouth College, Cook Auditorium, where James Hansen and Jason Grumet are speaking tonight on the topic of Climate Challenge: Implications for Energy and Policy and Intergenerational Justice.

I’ll be live blogging, updating the diary body every couple of minutes with more text. I won’t be able to comment until it’s over, assuming my battery lasts.

There’s a big disclaimer at the bottom of the presentation screen: “Any statements relating to policy are personal opinion.”

Note: I can’t type as fast as people can speak, so everything will be paraphrased.

Presentation below the fold…

The room is filling up rapidly. It appears to be a very popular lecture. Looks like a standing-room-only crowd.

Intro:

Joe K. Dean of Thayer School.

“One of the greatest challenges of all in energy: climate. Our grad student enrollments are up, across the board, 20 to 80% over this time a year ago. We think it’s because of the need for engineers to focus on energy and climate. Encouraging sign. The entire campus is paying attention, not just engineering. Students on April 15 will be launching an energy awareness campaign to accelerate Dartmouth’s progress to reducing CO2 emissions to 30% below 2005 emissions by 2030.”

Professor Lee Lynd:

Gratifying to have people show up. When we started discussing a symposium, it didn;t take us long to pick climate for the 1st topic, and the top of the list speakers would be James Hansen and Jason Grumet.

Brief outline: 1 hr presentations on science of clmate change, then on policy implications. Then a very brief (3 – 5 minutes) break for stretching. Then moderated discussion and Q & A. Finally reception at Thayer School.

James Hansen:

[heh, with perfect timing, someone apparently knocked a connector loose on the recording system, so there’s a brief break while they reconnect.]

Ok, we’re starting…

Want to emphasise energy and intergenerational justice.

  1. Knowledge gap between understood (science) and what is known (public/policy makers). Part of reason is weather – it’s hard for the public to realize that we have an emergency, but we have actually reached a crisis. Partly related to a forcing. The system doesn’t respond immediately, because the ocean if 4 km deep, so it takes it a long time to respond to a warming. There’s a lot of warming already in the pipeline. We can push the sustem beyond tipping points. For example if an ice sheet melts, there’s no going back from it. you can’t put a wall around it, or tie a rope to it. It’s too big.

There are advantages to bringing CO2 in atmosphrere down. Back in early part of this decade newspapers called me the grandfather of global warming, but the intergenerational aspect of this didn’t really hit me.

I testified to Congress in late 1980s, and decided to leave it to people who ware more articulate and enjoy talking. For 15 yrs I continued the policy, but finally came to conclusion that I needed to change, because I witnessed in the Govt an unwillingness to take seriously the evidence that hd accumulated. My grandson will be around for most of this centeruy. He will be around to witness full effects.

Temp has increased by 8/10 of a degree C. The last year was a cooler year — that was a natural fluctuation. Souther oscillation index (red = el nino, blue = la nina), ocean surface temperature correlates with that index.

Warming is larger over land than the ocean. Higher at high latitudes than low attitudes because of amplifying effect of snow melting exposing darker land, which absorbs more heat.

Why should we worry about less than 1% warming?

Basis of Understanding: Earth’s Paleoclimate history, Ongoing global changes, Climate models (helpful but not primary source of understanding)

[chart of temp near south pole, from core in antarctic ice sheet)

Recorded Human history occurs within the Holocen warm period. Compared to last ice age, it’s a very large climate oscillation. Ice sheet covered all the way to NY City. So much water locked up in the ice sheet that oceans were 350 feet lower. These changes forced by earth’s orbit and tilt modifications. When tilted more, poles get sunlight, ice melts, it’s a bit warmer. Ocean gives up carbon dioxide at these times, just like your soda gives off CO2 when it gets warmer.

The mechanisms that maintain the climate: albedo and reflectivity of the planet and change in greenhouse gases. If we put the two together, we can calculate the radiative forcing, and they explain historical changes very accurate. These two gases now under control of humans and accelerating far beyond what has happened ever before. It takes time for ocean temp to change and ice to melt, so we aren’t seeing the full impact of what’s already happened.

Deep ocean temps are changing. Reason for temp change on long time scale (end of cretaceous to today 65 million years) from sun has been about 1 watt/ meter squared. Surface roughlyt the same. Atmospheric CO2, india was still south of equator and moving north at 20cm/yr, plowing through ocean, pushing silt up out of the ocean and volcanoes spewing CO2 from carbonate rich substances. Then hit Eurasia, and pushed up himalayans, and stopped blowing CO2 into atmosphere.

We’re (umans) pushing 4 orders of magnitude more than the natural CO2 release.

At the time Antarctica started to freeze over: we would increase CO2 back to ice-free state. Starting a process out of our control and that of our children and grandchildren. Need to stop at level that avoids dangerous changes:

  1. Extermination of species.

  2. Ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise.

There have been 5 – 6 warmings, and each has driven mass extinctions.

In Arctic already near a tipping point in sea ice. Last 2 years to 1/2 1970s when satellite measurements began. We WILL lose the rest of that ice over the next few decades. To save it: we’d have to get to 325 – 350 ppm.

There was a question: will greenland get larger or smaller with warming? Because there’s more snow when the weather is warmer. We can measure the mass, and overall it’s losing mass at 100 cubic kilometers/yer. For sea levels to be stable, we need CO2 to be 300 ppm.  385 ppm = unstable.

Ocean circulation effects: the overturning cell of water expands, has already expanded 4 degrees of lattitude expansion. Why Lake Mead and Powell are now 1/2 full. Also why forest fires are increasing in number and area (factor of 4 in US). Also fresh water supplies are being effected: Ganges river 2/3 in fall and late summer from glacial melt. In 50 years most will be gone if we continue with co2 emissions. Coral reefs – increasing surface temp and increasing acid in ocean water, dissolving carbonate-shelled creatures. All these things tell us we should aim for no more than 350 ppm – which is less than we’re at right now.

If we want a pnlanet that looks like the one we live on now, then we need to act now.

That all indicts coal. Phase out emissions from coal altogether. This alone would peak us at 400 ppm – 425 ppm. That’s an amount from which we can reduce using different agricultural policy. Not likely to happen unless we make fossil fuel cost more than the alternatives.

Problem: fossil fuels are priced lowest, because they’re subsidized. It’s only because of the way the political system works. And we don’t charge for the damage they do.

Lobbyists pay exceed President’s. It’s a very lucrative job.

Cap & Trade is NOT going to work. It raises the price of energy,  but is subject to speculation and volatility. Will make millionaires at public expense. It’s ineffective at reducing emissions. The price increase it too small to impact people’s use. Emissions of countries that met Kytoto protocol was a miserable example.

Should be a carbon tax with 100% dividend. $1/gallon for gasoline, then give back to all adults = $3000/adult, plus half share for each of 1st 2 children in family. The ones who do better than aqverage at reducing usage will actually make money. Apply the fee at the port of entry or mine, or wherever the carbon is coming from. Just needs US, China, and Europe to agree to tax and put a duty on carbon sources.

Problem: conflict between fossil fuel interests vs children & nature. (animals don’t vote & can’t talk).

Political Process is not working. If we’d had campaign finance reform, we might be in a different place. But we may need the public to start to do some ethical actions.

Fossil fuel companies act as if we have God-given right to burn all the fuel.

Ran out of time, encourages people to go to his web site:

www.columbia.edu/~jeh1.

———————

Jason Grumet

Art of policy and the dark art of political compromise.

You take your victim as you find it.

We don’t have time to fix our democracy. So we need to wrestle with the beast we have. Sense of political spectrum, and key issues that are the options.

I am here to share OPINIONS.

Jim made a principled decision to leave the kleig lights to go to the lab. I got a 6 on a chem lab once, so I decided not to go into the lab ever again.

The person I’m trying to convince is NOT ME. I’ve never met anyone who is not at least 1/3 right. What are the rationales for those concerns that give people a political ability to change their minds.

The aspect of the science most compelling: urgency. Century scale problem, the first ten years looks the same no matter how much we need to reduce.

Getting started here in the US with an architecture that can be adapted is important. We’ve had a 10 yr debate about the urgency, but little motion. We need the first step.

Our government continues to flip back & forth, which is kind of neat. The policy we put in place has to be durable. You have to have bipartisan support for durability. It’s the only way it will have legs to get the job done.

We have better politics and a worse economy.

Congress is more focused on acting. Legislating on energy policy with no energy price crisis. Unheard of. Usually only do energy policy during a hysteria, leading to “do something.”

Beyond the fear and distraction, putting “market based” label on any environmental action was great. Not so much today. Walk intoa conservative member of Congress while I talk about a new commodities market and Wall street will create a derivatives market on it nd everything will be fine. But now it’s distrusted.

The basic math = coastal democrats on board, coal state republicans are a hard sell.

Why ambivalence?

Cost, competitive impact, []

Cost:

“There are $100 bills lying on the ground if you just put a cap on emissions. Pollution is inefficiency, let’s get it out of the system. “That’s true 15 – 100 yrs out. But that 1st 15 years can stink for some people. Our economy and infrastructure are based on and depend on the polluting infrastructure.

If optimist: you think this can be done pretty cheaply. If pessimist, you can think “it will bust the economy.” Everyone sticks with their own team. Need a system where you don’t have to depend on “trust me” to garner votes. If you put a cap on the costs of the program, you can help reduce that issue.

A carbon tax would put a cost cap on the program.

Madam Senator, it will not cost more than [x] – that they can come home and state to their voters.

Those pesky states do a lot of creative things, like capping emissions from smoke stacks. States go first, do smart stuff, bug the heck out of multi-state/multi-national companies, who then say to Congress “make these states stop bugging us. Give us consistent rules nationwide.”

Another option: states will have to go with fed authority for a prescribed period.

Offsets are an issue. Some places can reduce emissions than other places. Theoretically right. We will have to have a global market for offsets. Congress doesn’t trust “pay 20 million to buy offsets for Chinese farms to reduce methane to we can buy them and use them to burn our coal for a few years while we get the tech in line.”

Competitiveness:

Our country doesn’t like Presidents/Vice Presidents to negotiate international agreements ebfore congress knows what they want to do.

97 members of senate said, we won’t vote for Kyoto. It wasn’t due to not believing in climate change, it was “AL Gore, we didn’t say you could do that.”

3rd world impact: China and India are in this game, too. We need law that will take that into account. We’ll need to attend to the increased energy costs of US manufacturing (give them revenue to invest in new tech).

Money:

Climate change legislation is about redistributing money.

You want to reduce 20% of emissions/yr.  The cost of reducing that is $3/$5 billion per year. The moment you start a cap and trade program, you create a commodity. Every ton you allow to be emitted, is worth whatever it would cost to reduce them. President says auction them all. Use some to invest in tech, some to help affected industries.

“Wait a minute, this is a big revenue shift! It’s not about the policy@”

Any rational policy = charge for the bad stuff and give money to good stuff.

Hansens’ suggestion about charge with rebate, govt not really touching the money might work.

If we get the law to succeed, the folks who didn’t want to pass the law will get a say in how the money is spent.

If you believe this is an incredibly big problem : famine, flooding, dislocations, extinctions, then maybe we should give them what they need – give a portion of the $$ to [say, fuel reprocessing] if that’s what it takes to get the legislator to actually vote to REDUCE CARBON.

There is a growing sense of urgency that I hope will provide the motivation to make policy happen.

————-

Moderated Panel Begins:

Q1: (for Jason Grumet)

1970 – 1973 when environmental policy laws went into effect. Response to people demanding change.

In 2008, social movement elected President who wants to make change. Is social movement done, or is more social movement needed to galvanize?

A1: President Obama has best email list in world and intends to use it. Think there’s enough social pressure now for Congress to act. We need to untangle the knots – you can call them “special interest knots,” or “I only vote for people who vote for me knots,” but they exist.

One legislator asked me “How many times do you think I’ve been asked about climate change?” Answer was NEVER.  This legislator wanted to vote yes, but he needs to hear from people, a TV ad isn’t going to help.

A1 (Hansen): I’m optimistic because of outstanding people appointed, but if what we hear about the notion that cap & trade will solve this problem, then I don;’t theink they “get it” yet.  I think it will take more young people getting involved and agitating.  PowerShift is the beginning of an indication that young people are starting to be concerned. It will take a LOT more than that to get some attention to this. A 20 cent change in gas price will not move us to the post-fossil fuel era.

Q2: (For both)

How would you encourage the public to think about and receive what appears to be a significant disparity of opinion (like the Cato institute’s full page ad in NYT this weekend).

A2 (Hansen): It’s tough, because there is that appearance. If Pres wanted to do something and wanted backing, all he has to do is ask the national academy of scientists to give him an evaluation. They’ll make clear that it’s not a 60/40 issue. Humans are dominating long term climate change.

The reason that the appearance of doubt exists is the fossil fuel industry trying to foster the notion.

Ask the most authoritative scientific body in the country.

A2 (Grumet): Scientists speak differently from the rest of us. When scientist says there’s uncertainty, it does NOT mean “I don’t know.”  When scientists say that this thing that’s worsening, it’s a “psotivie feedback.” Well people LIKE positive feedback. There are people working on helping scientists learn how to speak to US.

Q3:

New stories – “99% emerging consensus on climate change.” It became a big controversy about whether the statement was meant to be narrowly interpreted. THen you pulled out of the public discussion.

A3: (Hansen)

A1: Media always likes to put 2 talking heads debating with each other, which makes it look like the issue is evenly divided. Press in last few years, media has become more sophisticated, but NYT and other “respected”  media have been slipping backward in allowing/encouraging misperception.

A lot of people think we’ll need to see significant climate effects to get policy makers to take action. But if we wait, nature may be too far down the path for any action we take to make the needed difference.

Q4:

Interaction between economic and climate challenges. When people talk about solution to economic problem, they say “let’s get consumption going again” Is that kind of antithetical to get climate action to happen, or is there a way to use the situation to address climate challenges.

A4: The system has been perturbed – things are in chaos. I don’t want to do anything to add to that. Don’t want to raise hackles. Getting the response: “I’m just getting this thing back together, give me a minute.” But we NEED BIG changes, NOW.

Let’s go back to the old economy doesn’t have quite the force that it used to, which is why green jobs and clean tech has gotten a foothold. Maybe green jobs replacing brown jobs will bring us out of this crisis. We’ve taken the “Russian approach” to climate change: have the economy croak. This isn’t the way we want to solve the climate problem. We need investment.

A4 (Hansen):

No crisis should be wasted. A carbon fee that gives $$ back to a family, is a progressive thing. It gives more to the poor who use less. And the bigger thing: Energy Independence. I once sat with a Saudi ambassador, and the more I talked about this tax. He knows that by the time gas next reaches $4/gallon, half of that tax would be dollars staying in the US, damping down demand for the product. In addition, it would be stimulative, encouraging people to be innovative.

Q5:

People in the scientific community think the stiff we don’t know should drive policy. In DC, there’s the opposite: we need certainty before we can move.

A5: The disconnect of logical imperative vs certainty. People who are elected in 2 and 6 year cycles need to be able to speak to what they’ve done, for things that are not going to work noticably in those timeframes.

The more pressure from constituents, the better.

Don’t want to wait around for the pressure to take effect, because by the time we gt there, we be seeing those “positive feedbacks.”

———–

Audience Questioins:

Q: Jason, James talked about how Cap & Trade can’t work, then you talked about cap & trade.

A: The beauty of a tax and the woe of a tax is transparency. The beauty of a tax and the woe of a tax is that it’s obfuscated.

I think a carbon tax may be possible, but our body politic may find, in the future, that we’ll have to TAX something, cuz we’re running out of money for more stimulus. That may be the point at which acceptance of carbin tax will become real.

There’s a good enough chance we can do that in 18 mo, we can’t afford not to try.

Q: Clean Coal purely euphemism or does it deserve a place in policy discussion?

A: There’s no such thing, but it’s technically possible to capture the CO2, but it would make it MUCH more expensive. It’s been used as an advertisement, but with no real intent for it to be used. COmpanies pretended to be working on it. It’s very hard to capture all the murcury. You’ll end up with waste piles at the mines and mountaintop removal is destroying mountains, so in that sense, there really isn’t any clean coal, even if we sequester.  We should do a commercial scale coal plant just to demonstrate the cost. We should consider a 4th gen nuclear power (burns 100% of fuel – instead of less than 1%).

Q:

Sagan decried lack of respect for scientists in this country. People don’t believe scientists. What will we be facing if we don’t come to our senses for 25 years.

A: I could see this coming: 20 years in the future, people would ask “Why ddn’t anyone tell us?”

Well, we’re trying to make it clear, but if we go 25 years without doing the things we need, we will have certainly passed the tipping point with the ice sheets. Water problems will be one of the biggest issues in the US and developing countries. I think we’ll come to our senses before 25 years from now, but it had BETTER be much sooner than that.

Q: Low energy prices, and people are still not going back to the SUVs. We’re still concerned aout environmental ussues.  WE the people GET IT. GM banked on us going back to SUVs when energy prices dropped. We didn’t so they’re going out of business. Cap & Trade and Cap & rebate are both games. public behavior fuels environmental change. We get it. Can we get OVcngress, Wall St., and the captains of industry to JUSRT act?

A: Even if we get it in US, if you don’t have a price on the carbon, it makes the fuel cheaper and somoene elese somewhere else WILL burn it. We’ve GOTTA do something to prevent the use of the cheap fossil fuels.

Q: Isn’t it better to accept the engineering challenge to come up with energy source cheaper than coal?

A: If the guy with cold fusion in a jar had been right, then we could all be at the ba r instead of in this room. If we create the rewards to maximize the liklihood of these acheivments, we’ll get there faster.

Q: We need to get manageable numbers to people who want to take action. We want to reduce 600,000 houses to 50% of their energy use, and that will cost “x.” This made it possible for politicians to grasp what they needed to do to translate it to a format that can be used for policy (your house is using 3x average, and 7x what it could be using, here’s how to fix that.”

Oftent he money’s available, but people don’t know what to do. If we’re going to reduce energy 80% worldwide, we’ll have a different lifestyle. Or do you think we’ll manage to keep the exonomy booming with 0 carbon.

A: Don’t need to reduce use by 80%, we need carbon free energies that reduce.

A2: Things will be as different in 50 years as they were 50 years ago. My favorite energy bill shows your use vs your neighbors’ use.

Q; In 2007 in spring, I stood on the ice and said “Oh My God.” We looked at the data and felt like the Los Alamos engineers after the first test. In 2008, as the data came in, we felt more like the people of Nagasaki.

There are places in Inuit villages that are already being ruined. Would like to see metrics of the human component. I think effort to place metrics on quality of life in the face of altering ecosystems would be a very good strategy to formulate at policy and systems level. Cna we show the cost of increased fires next to the cost of CO2 mediation? Ditto for food supply. 1 billion people are now officially hungry on this planet.

I don’t know how to measure the pulse of humanity. that message isn’t getting across. YOU CANNOT LIVE in the world that is being projected. Is there an effort to put quantifiable metrics on this?

A: Yes. Not sure about the successfulness. You’re trying to change people’s voting. They’re not reading and listening to those studies. They’re listening to a 30 second conversation with a friend rather than a 30k page report from a bevy of Nobel Laureates.  It’s all a question of distribution. Show Senator X about how HOS constituents will be affected.

A2: Field Notes from Catastrophe (book), has addressed much of this. There are only 24 hrs in a day and we’re already using most of them.

A3: Charismatic megafauna change votes (polar bears).

Q: Technologies (wind and solar) remarkable power law on their price function. If you look at what it takes to replace US fossil fuel production, if wind and solar just keep doing what they’re doing, already (20%/yr growth), it will wipe out the problem. Why don’t we see more of that kind of projection? Why don’t we see those scenarios in policy discussion?

A: Exponential curves don’t continue indefinitely. Many experts don’t think sun & wind will supply all our energy . Some places are trying – Germany for example, but they still need 25 new coal fired power plants. Wind and solar are still only 2% of the current, we CAN’T WAIT several decades. We MUST eliminate the coal much sooner.

Cost of inaction may be 5 – 20 times greater than the cost of action.

Q: India and China don’t think wind and solar will solve all their energy needs. That means they look to coal and nuclear. Some nuclear experts say 10 yrs to a 4th generation plant working.

A:We HAVE to have the solution in a decade. You should do the R&D on both nuclear and carbon sequestration, so there are options when the 10 yrs arrives.

Q: “So What” factor. How do we deal with that?

A: The time scale for new species to evolve is a time scale we can’t even imagine. If we drive species to extinction, we’ll have a desolate planet.

Q: Sea Level rise?

A: Real experts are getting VERY WORRIED, especially when looking at western antarctica. There’s the danger that the land-bound ice will rapidly cause a 1 meter per year rise for many years (last one was 25 years).

You see littel change at the beginning, but then it suddenly goes VERY fast. We Don’t know how much further we can go.

Business as usual will be several degrees of warming. There will be no ocean ice in the ANTARCTIC, and the ice sheet will be completely covered with water in summer.

Q: Lovins says we’re in an energy efficiency erevolution, and technology will solve the problem

A: He’s usually right … EVENTUALLY. The issue is the “soft barriers.” When your hot water heater blows, you call a guy to replace it, but that doesn’t guarantee efficiency. It’s not going to happen by itself with just technology.

We keep asking utilities to save energy, but pay based on energy they produce. We need to fix that.

A2 (Hansen): Lovins is not always right. He says we don’t need a price on carbon. He’s dead wrong on that. We can make standards, but they won’t be enforced. There are not enough people to go around and make sure they’re building them that way. As long as it’s cheaper to waste, that’s what people will do.

Q: Don’t understand that 380 is too much CO2. I’m sure we’ll hit 450 before it happens. There must be incentive for NEGATIVE carbin emissions. How does port and mine tax pay for negative carbon emissions?

A: Good question. Gotta figure out how to incentivise negative emission. If you come up with a scheme to do that, the dividend pool would eed to be divided to take that into account. We’ll see more before we get action, so you’re right, we’ll have to solve this problem of incentivising negative.

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New Chief of the Vermont State Police, Tom L’Esperance, has announced a major break in the case of Governor Douglas’ mysterious disappearance.

L’Esperance told reporters this afternoon the department “has reason to believe that there is a fiendishly dangerous, interstate legging ring, headquartered in VT.”

This ring, according to sources, has nationwide reach, and was run out of the left rear pocket of the Governor’s pants. Details are sketchy, but unnamed individuals in the Governor’s office have told this reporter that just before his disappearance, the Governor mumbled that someone was “in his pocket,” and he planned to “take care of the situation.”

Our office has been leaked a copy of the following police sketch, laying out the interrelationships of the suspected ring members:

While the pants were the obvious mastermind, located at the heart of the ring, the other players, especially Trousers are wanted for questioning.

Police consider the suspects extremely dangerous, and strongly recommend you avoid approaching them. Instead call the special hotline at the end of this article, immediately, if you should see them in your neighborhood.

The bloomers are said to be particularly starchy, and are likely to chafe and scratch unsuspecting victims. The following artist’s rendering has been released to help the public identify this particularly dangerous garment:

Police are offering a reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of bloomers, knickers, trousers, or other ring members.

To report a sighting, call: 1-800-555-FOOL.

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The Vermont Legislature’s press conference today brought good news on how the legislature will deal with the economy and on Vermonter’s civil rights.

House Speaker Shap Smith and Senate President Peter Shumlin announced their legislative priorities for the remainder of the 2009 session.  

On the table are: legislation to create good paying jobs for Vermonters, encourage the development of clean renewable energy, reduce the Governor’s proposed tax burden on businesses and

grant equal marriage rights to all Vermonters.

The reasons for jobs, taxes, and clean energy pieces are obvious. But why civil rights this year?

Other states have passed equal marriage laws … though some needed a court to help them understand that it was unconstitutional to deny marriage equality. In separate written remarks from Senator Shumlin, he describes a little of the history of Civil Unions in Vermont, equal marriage in the US and elsewhere, and the differences between the rights his family has from those of a same-gender couple and their children who live in the same community:

In the years since [the passage of Civil Unions] the world has changed dramatically.  Same-sex couples began legally marrying to our north in Canada, as well as a handful of other countries.  To our south, they began legally marrying in Massachusetts.  Connecticut adopted Vermont’s civil union law, and then moved on to marriage.  Legislatures throughout the Northeast-including the two other states that passed civil union laws of their own – are considering marriage bills this year.  Vermont is no longer alone, and we’re no longer leading.  Here in Vermont, peoples’ fears in connection with the civil union law have proven unfounded.  Nobody was harmed, some families enjoy a little more security, and our State is a better place for having taken that step.

There is strong support throughout the state. As this ad shows, even the Burlington Free Press(!) supports marriage equality. It’s not simply the right thing to do, it’s downright mainstream:

More below the fold:

From Shumlin’s written remarks we get the real reason why we need this legislation – people are being denied equal rights; real families are being denied the same basic rights that the rest of us take for granted:

It’s clear that Bari and Diane’s family is as worthy as our own, and that their love and commitment to one another is no less than that between Deb and I or Shap and Melissa. But I’m conscious that our laws still don’t recognize that; they don’t allow Bari and Diane to get the same civil marriage license from their Town Clerk that I and so many other heterosexual Vermonters take for granted.  As a result, they’re two-steps removed from important federal protections like Social Security survivor benefits.  They face greater uncertainty when they travel outside of Vermont.  They’re more likely to be denied spousal health insurance benefits.  They are shut out of an institution-marriage-that’s as relevant and important to them as it is to me.  Our laws build a figurative wall between their family and my own-a wall that doesn’t match the reality that I know.

But, as eloquent as Shumlin may be, he can’t beat Sandi and Bobbi when it comes to showing why equality matters:

Be sure to thank Representative Smith and Senator Shumlin for looking out for all our interests this session, and encourage your own representative(s) and Senator(s) to support equal marriage.  Vermont will be a better place the day this bill is signed.

At Vermont Freedom to Marry, they’ve posted the following information for those who want to get involved:

The Senate Judiciary Committee will start the work on S.115, “An Act to Protect Religious Freedom and Promote Equality in Civil Marriage,” sponsored by Senate leaders Peter Shumlin, John Campbell, and Claire Ayer, on Monday, March 16, when legislators return from the Town Meeting break.

The House and Senate Judiciary Committees will jointly host a PUBLIC HEARING on Wednesday, MARCH 18, from 6:00 – 8:30 p.m. at the Statehouse in Montpelier. MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

There was a lot of noise a while back about the planned RFID (radio frequency ID) licenses in VT, but because the topic is complicated, and right-wingers were all too happy to decimate everyone’s right to privacy for the sake of false “security,” the discussion generated more heat than light.

Remember the photo of the happy Motor Vehicles Commissioner Bonnie Rutledge smiling behind a sample “enhanced” license?

[source Times-Argus]

Well, here’s something: it’s expensive to implement, it makes us less secure, and it opens us up to identity theft.

The first few are to be issued next month to VIPs, and they’ll become available to the general public early in 2009, according to Vermont Motor Vehicle Commissioner Bonnie Rutledge.

The new licenses cost $25 more than regular ones. Anyone applying will have to present extensive documentation to prove their identity and be interviewed by a motor vehicle employee. Unlike traditional ones, they’re not going to be issued on the spot. Instead, they’ll be mailed once the information has been verified.

With the budget quaking under the weight of economic collapse, it’s time to revisit the reasons why tagging everyone with an RFID is a VERY bad idea.

RFID tags are tiny little radio transponders that broadcast and receive information. In this case, they broadcast a number that is assigned only to you, and often other information. The ones embedded in your clothing even broadcast what you’re wearing, and if one from your pet food bag landed on your shoe, you’re even broadcasting what you feed your pets.

Someone with the right inexpensive and easy to acquire equipment can find out more about you than you ever wanted to tell them (where did you get that underwear?). Do you have a new credit card with a chip? Guess what you’re broadcasting!

The one common thread among identity thefts stories we hear about is that someone got inappropriate access a computer to get your data.

But what if all they needed was an antenna?

With RFID, that’s all that’s needed. If you have an RFID license, an RFID passport, and one of the newer RFID credit cards, anyone with a couple pieces of hardware and a laptop can get your data simply by being nearby. They can then clone the data, and create a whole new set of RFIDs indicating that they are you.

Ironically, RFID makes passport and license forgery EASIER. And to all those college kids looking for fake liquor IDs, you’re golden! Just snag some hardware, and start cloning. You’ll have an iron clad ID that everyone will THINK is real. You can quit working on lowering the drinking age, and instead just invest in a little hardware. It’ll be faster and more convenient.

Here’s a quick video of how easy it is to clone RFIDs:

In addition to the ease of stealing and cloning someone else’s data, RFIDs still provide the more traditional identity theft route – a double-whammy to your identity security:

The information from every RFID tag, whether it’s the one in your license, your credit card, your passport, or your sexy push-up bra, is stored in a database. In the database, that number is connected to a whole bunch of other information about you. In some databases, that means name, age, address, date of birth, social security number are stored together, often unencrypted.  For merchandise, the item, purchase date, purchase time, purchase location, a purchaser ID, and perhaps information about you or your credit card. For credit cards, any information you provided in order to get the card, perhaps purchase information, and more.

Even if you believe the Government will only use the data the ID provides about your every move benignly (right), you should be concerned about data security.

Here are a couple of examples of why you should be concerned about yet ANOTHER database full of your information:

March 28th, 2008

4.2 Million Records Stolen In Supermarket Data Breach

Unauthorized software that was secretly installed on servers in Hannaford Bros. Co.’s supermarkets across the Northeast and in Florida enabled the massive data breach that compromised up to 4.2 million credit and debit cards, the company said Friday. The finding was revealed in a letter from Hannaford general counsel Emily Dickinson to Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and Gov. Deval Patrick’s Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation.

Stolen Computer Holds Government Database of 1.4 Million Coloradans

Thursday, November 02, 2006

DENVER –  A computer stolen from a private contractor holds a database that may contain personal information of up to 1.4 million Coloradans, including information of anyone recently hired by any company in the state, officials said.

Affiliated Computer Services Inc. this week began notifying at least 500,000 people listed on the state’s child-support enforcement division database that their identity may be on the desktop that was stolen Oct. 14.

The “enhanced” license program is one of those budget items that’s simply a waste. It provides no benefit whatsoever to Vermonters, dramatically increases the chances of identity theft, and eliminates our privacy.

Plus, in exchange for increased vulnerability, your trip to the registry for one of these licenses will cost more ($25 more per license) and take longer, while you present a bunch of extra information (birth certificate, social security number, etc.) and go through an extensive interview process with a specially trained registry employee in a specially built room.

The RFID license program can be shut down before it costs the taxpayers another penny. The existing database can be erased, and current RFID licenses can be treated as normal licenses. For those who have such licenses already, and worry about the information they’re broadcasting, some people have tested various methods for disabling RFID chips in things like credit cards.

Sure, there are sunk costs already in the system ($2 million or so), but throwing good money after bad isn’t good fiscal policy, especially in shaky financial times. While the legislature figures out what to cut, this one is a no-brainer.

Just for fun, I’ve included a few extra news snippets on recent data thefts below the fold.

Below are more instances of data theft. I collected all these in one Google search. These were all on the first page of results. There are tons and tons more examples, many thousands as a matter of fact. Your data is not safe, whether collected by retailers, hospitals, credit card companies, card processors, or the government.

Do we really need greater exposure to identity theft? Is it really a good idea to be walking around broadcasting the info needed by identity theives? Should we be spending our tax dollars on this?

SAN FRANCISCO, June 24 PRNewswire – A week after CardSystems Solutions, Inc. disclosed that thieves made off with credit-card information affecting up to 40 million cardholders, the company has provided scant information about how the theft was perpetrated. CardSystems and the FBI are reportedly searching for the cause and the perpetrators.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. –  Fidelity National Information Services, a financial processing company, said Tuesday a worker at one of its subsidiaries stole 2.3 million consumer records containing credit card, bank account and other personal information.

July 3, 2008 9:52 AM PDT

Stolen: Google employees’ personal data

Google has confirmed that personal data of U.S. employees hired prior to 2006 have been stolen in a recent burglary.

Records kept at Colt Express Outsourcing Services, an external company Google and other companies use to handle human resources functions, were stolen in a burglary on May 26. An undisclosed number of employees’ details and those of dependents such as names, addresses, and Social Security numbers were on the stolen computers. It is understood that Colt did not employ encryption to protect the information.

Bank Of America To Pay Connecticut For Countrywide Data Breach

2009-01-30 – courant.com

Bank of America will pay Connecticut $350,000 as part of a settlement for a data breach by Countrywide Financial Corp., which the bank acquired last year, state officials said Thursday.

The bank will also provide at least $25,000 to reimburse Connecticut residents forced to pay for freezing and unfreezing their credit reports because of the breach, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said.

Georgia driver’s license data put at risk

May 14, 2005

By Nancy Badertscher

Georgia motorists are being advised to monitor their credit reports after a government computer programmer was charged with downloading state driver’s license information to his home computers.

TJX theft tops 45.6 million card numbers

Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2007-03-30

More than three months after detecting a breach of its systems, retail giant TJX Companies released this week its best guess at the number of customers whose credit-card information and other data were stolen by online thieves.

Hundreds of millions of private credit card records stolen from PCI card processor

Credit card payment processor Heartland Payment Systems announced this week that hundreds of millions of credit card transactions were stolen last year.  This latest hack far eclipsed the 45 Million TJX Companies records lost from 2004-2007.  The stolen data includes names, credit/debit card numbers and expiration dates.

…

Heartland reportedly determined the source of the breach last week as a piece of malicious software.

Heartland Payment Systems is a member of the Payment Card Industry’s (PCI) small group of payment processors. Any business that handles credit card data, from an end merchant through processors and the issuers themselves, are part of the PCI. Established by a consortium of Visa, Mastercard, American Express and others, PCI is one of the largest commercial groups creating a minimum security requirement for their members.

When was the last time someone asked you NOT to give them money?  Not recently, right? Now, when was the last time a non-profit asked you NOT to give money?

In our new economy, every penny counts, but in politics, every penny counts more – especially at the federal level. Lawrence Lessig and the team at Change-Congress.org have come up with the perfect marriage of NOT spending money and making our lawmakers accountable to us, instead of those who … um, well, have all the money.

How does it work?

It’s easy: You go to the Change-Congress.org (note the hyphen) web site and pledge NOT to donate to federal candidates, unless they pledge to support legislation making congressional elections citizen-funded, not special-interest funded.

Here’s what the pledge looks like:

I’m pledging not to donate to any federal candidate unless they support legislation making congressional elections citizen-funded, not special-interest funded.

Simple, right?

Change-Congress.org keeps track of how much money is being un-pledged to each lawmaker, and lets lawmakers know how much they’ll lose if those lawmakers don’t take the pledge.

The way things work right now, our leaders keep coming up with legislation that favors Goliath over David. And we’re David. This is largely because, if they want to get elected, they need millions of dollars every few years, and most of those dollars come from … not us. If we can change that one thing about our political system, we can give David back the slingshot.

As we watch our neighbors lose their jobs and homes (while investment companies are given billions of our tax dollars to fund corporate bonuses and office upgrades); as we hear about the state being unable to meet its Unemployment Insurance obligations; as we learn that food pantries are running out of food; the problem becomes crystal clear. The political system has become steeply tilted, and not in a good way.

So, spread the word about Change-Congress.org, and citizen-funded elections. You can help level the playing field, and it won’t cost you a penny.  

P.S. – Congressman Welch has already signed the pledge, so be sure send him a note of thanks.

Here’s a YouTube explaining the idea:

These photos are from CSPAN.org:

Our New President taking the Oath of Office

People extend to and beyond the Washington Monument:

We watched the inauguration today with my 78 yr old father.

Dad and Mom had been great admirers of both Bobby Kennedy and MLK. Mom did campaign grunt work for Kennedy, stuffing envelopes, making phone calls. She had no political ambition, only a desire to bring about a more just world. If she were here today, to see her great hope come true, her heart would have melted with joy.

If she were here today, I’d say, “Here’s to you Mom! We did it. We finally did it.”

There is a child in Florida who has a dream. His name is Damon Weaver, an elementary school student who wants nothing more than to interview President-elect Barack Obama.

In pursuit of his dream, Damon has put his skills to work, and shown incredible initiative:

There’s a fundraiser to send Damon and a caregiver to Washington DC for the Inauguration.

Checks or money orders to help Damon get to DC should be made out to:

KEC/Canal Point Elementary

And mailed to:

KEC/Canal Point Elementary

Attention: Brian Zimmerman

37000 Main Street

Canal Point, FL 33438  

Let’s help this kid get the chance to interview the next President of the United States!

Do you ever have times when you read something, then have to re-read it because you can’t believe you read it right?

That’s my reaction to the news that Goldman Sachs (Treasury Secretary Paulson’s former stomping grounds) is having a fine holiday season while Vermonters and other Americans face destitution and service cuts. Why fund fire trucks, child care or health care when ponzi-schemers could be partying instead?

Here’s the deal: Goldman played their accounting cards so well this year, that they “owe” only 1% tax. So on the multi-billions of dollars they earned last year, plus the $10 billion taxpayer dollars they took in the bailout, they only have to pay a pittance to support the infrastructure of the country that made their obscene profits possible.

More below the fold…

So what? Companies are always finding ways to pay less tax. Aren’t fewer taxes better?

That last question is a conditioned response now in America. We’ve been told over and over for decades that companies hire more people if they have to pay fewer taxes. This is based on something called the Laffer curve (named after a person, not after what the greedsters do everytime they con us into believing in it). The Laffer curve is supposed to be this magical statistical map of taxes vs jobs. Presumably, the higher the taxes, the fewer the jobs.

But what most proponents of this theory misunderstand is that the guy who came up with the theory didn’t map a linear relationship between jobs and taxes, he mapped a curve. On one side would be increasing taxes creating jobs by creating a better educated workforce, better roads, better security, etc. – all those things taxes pay for that make it easier to do business successfully.

The peak of the curve is the hypothetical number where you’ve got the ultimate in support for successful business combined with the ultimate profits for that business.

The other side of the curve, where it goes back downhill, is where taxes become so onerous, the business can’t profit.

What we’ve been told for the last few decades is that any and all taxes are automatically on the downhill side – any tax automatically drags down profits to the point at which no business can survive. So we’ve been cutting, and cutting, and cutting, and all of a sudden, we have crappy roads, schools are hemorrhaging, and fire departments go begging. And businesses are failing. Rapidly.

Which brings us back to Goldman. They paid 1% in 2007, but paid 34% in 2006. That’s a 97% tax cut. Which side of the Laffer curve would that put them on?

From Bloomberg News:

The company’s effective income tax rate dropped to 1 percent from 34.1 percent [last year]…The firm reported a $2.3 billion profit for the year …[and] lowered its rate with more tax credits as a percentage of earnings and because of “changes in geographic earnings mix,” the company said.

So they won’t be contributing to rebuild our failing roads, our kids’ health care, or our police, fire, military, or really any budget items this year.

Instead, they’re going to make much better use of the money they’ve “saved” (you know, like that $10 billion debt guarantee they got from the U.S. tax payer in October): Christmas bonuses!

That’s right. It’s not what they’re calling it, they’re calling it “employee compensation.” Some refer to it as a “retention bonus,” because with the economy cranking out so many new high-paid jobs for bankers, they’re worried their employees will head for greener pastures.  (For the reading comprehension impaired, the previous sentence was absolutely dripping with sarcasm.)

Would you like to let Goldman Sachs know what you think of their decision to shift money around to the places that would tax them the least, so they could avoid paying taxes back home? Would you like to help them understand just how much you appreciate their shafting of the US taxpayer, by taking our money, using it for bonuses, and then choosing not to pay their fair share in taxes?

Here’s a good place to start:

GOLDMAN SACHS CONTACT INFO

Main number in NYC: 212-902-1000

Investor relations: 212-902-0300 (gs-investor-relations@gs.com)

Bug their press department: 212-902-5400

And if you want to talk to someone in the US Senate who has almost single-handedly ensured that the rip-off artists wizards of the financial industry would be comfortably free of regulations and accountability, how about dropping a line to Chuck Schumer’s office?

CHUCK SCHUMER CONTACT INFO

Washington, D.C. office: 202-224-6542

New York City office: 212-486-4430

Democratic Senatorial Camapaign Committee: 202-224-2447

Why Schumer? The NY Times gives some background:

Mr. Schumer appeared at a breakfast fund-raiser in Midtown Manhattan for Senate Democrats. Addressing Henry R. Kravis, the buyout billionaire, and about 20 other finance industry executives, he warned that a bailout would be a hard sell on Capitol Hill. Then he offered some reassurance: The businessmen could count on the Democrats to help steer the nation through the financial turmoil.

“We are not going to be a bunch of crazy, anti-business liberals,” one executive said, summarizing Mr. Schumer’s remarks. “We are going to be effective, moderate advocates for sound economic policies, good responsible stewards you can trust.”

The message clearly resonated. The next week, executives at firms represented at the breakfast sent in more than $135,000 in campaign donations.

…[Schumer] repeatedly took other steps to protect industry players from government oversight and tougher rules, a review of his record shows. Over the years, he has also helped save financial institutions billions of dollars in higher taxes or fees.

He needs to know we’re watching and that we won’t put up with this game any more. Let him know that it’s time to end trickle-on economics.

Warm up that dialing finger and get on the horn to these people. Let them know you will not tolerate any more of these shenanigans.  

This week, I had the rare privilege of seeing two profoundly magical moments in two days.

The first was Sunday night, after I turned out the lights and climbed into bed. I lay down, with my face toward the window, and saw two brilliant stars through the trees. I leaned forward to get a better look and realized that instead of stars, I was seeing the moon reflected in the ice on the branches of a tree. Then I noticed that every branch of every tree within my view had dozens of tiny moons tracing its curves. It was a starkly beautiful display that made all those human attempts at tree-lighting seem as awkward and graceless as a day-old colt in the mud.

Then at 10 am yesterday, in a small gathering in Room 11 of the State House, Vermont’s Electors officially cast their ballots for President and Vice President of the United States.

Vermont may be a little state, but even with only 3 electors, we provided one of the more diverse electoral college contingents in the country: 33.3% male, 66% female, 33.3% African American, 33.3% lesbian, and 33.3% State Senator all in one tidy little bundle!

The crowd was small (Orange County was seriously over-represented: fielding 7 people out of roughly 20), but the energy was large – you could feel the excitement as the proceedings began with the swearing in of the electors.

(Electors, Standing: Claire Ayer, Euan Bear, Kevin Christie)

More photographic goodness below the fold…

They had to take 2 oaths of office, and elect members for 3 different positions (which was pretty amusing to watch, since there were exactly as many people as positions).

Once the formalities were out of the way, the electors got down to business. There were two slips of blue paper for each elector. One had the name of the Presidential candidate and a check box; the other had the name of the Vice Presidential candidate and a check box. They didn’t seem to need a whole lot of time to figure out which candidate to choose!

Then came the most time-consuming part of the event. Each elector had to sign 6 copies of the State of Vermont Certificate of Vote form. I never needed to know whether or not the word “sextuplicate” existed before this. (It does.)

Now the forms will be sent to separate places to ensure that if one copy is lost, there are others from which the data can be recovered.

The most notable recipient will be the President of the US Senate, VP Dick Cheney, who will officially count the Electoral College vote on January 6. Let’s hope he’s a whole lot better at counting than he is at hunting birds whose wings have been clipped. At the very least, he doesn’t need a firearm for counting, so all faces in the room should be safe, unless he has a trick abacus or something…

So there you have it. Vermont quietly participated in the historic victory of the first African-American President of the United States: a brilliant spot of sunlight on a gray December morning. We were the first state to be declared for Obama, and now we’ve sealed the deal.

Congratulations to the Electors on their role in making history!

update:

Now available in Orange