CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
May 12, 2009 09:44 PM UTC
53 Comments
Colorado Department of Transportation!
RTD!
Colorado Highway Department!
Denver Regional Council of Governments!
City of Denver!
City of Boulder!
Ridiculous.
That’s incredibly stupid of those agencies if so, and another reason to have voted yes on this bill.
they aren’t sensible about anything here. I personally am strongly in favor of it for many jobs because people are more productive at home and work longer hours. Plus they’re happier.
…the Department of Highways were the same thing?
and they both forbid telecommuting. If no one had to drive to work, their work would disappear!
is to deny the possibility that the flaming lake of complex hydrocarbons adversely effects the planet.
Another effective strategy to destroy your credibility is to claim that those complex hyrdocarbons are never older than the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun 6,000 times. Why? Because only God is that old, thats why!
Aah, this is my favorite Republican dead horse to beat.
He’s the only legislator I know of who lives entirely off the grid. Seriously, very few know it, but his home is totally self-sustaining.
And with regard to “global warming,” even its apologists now utilize the term “climate change” because the evidence is blowing a hole in the entire theory. The “global warming / climate change” theories are a scheme of leftist groups to get more funding from the federal government. Sounds simplistic. But ask any of these groups who run around scaring folks about global warming. Follow the money.
He consistently votes against protection for the environment and against alternative energy ideas. Big whoop–he lives “off the grid.” Too bad his forward thinking doesn’t extend beyond his front lawn to the rest of his constituents.
As for the rest of your comment, have fun with your denial. Hope it keeps you warm at night.
Why was the earth so warm at various times in its history? The ice caps have melted completely and refrozen over and over again based on cycles we have only the dimmest comprehension of. Temperate animals have lived above the Arctic Circle. Boreal forests in ancient Antarctica. I took paleobotany, please don’t fuck with me.
You cannot prove that humans are responsible for global warming. The earth’s long history reveals your worst nightmares of climate change have happened over and over again with no help from us. One Krakatoa can change the climate more that everything you socialists can ever dream of to choke the economy in pursuit of ‘climate stasis’ that any scientist knows is a ridiculous idea.
And have you seen Al Gore’s electric bill? Fuck.
I see you have your mandatory, right wing denial talking points down pat. The Party must be thrilled to have you.
but wrong about their implication. You’re also wrong about the role of “proof” in science.
Yes, there have been huge climate fluctuations in geological history. Few, according to the geological record, have accelerated so rapidly as the present one (as measured by glacial melting), but some have. However, we are not quites so helpless in the analysis of complex dynamical systems that we are unable to discern one similar event from another at a different time and under different conditions. Also, regardless of causation, the question would remain: What can and should humans do to proactively deal with the challenges involved due to current trends?
First, let’s lay the issues out clearly. There are two, to start with, that are often conflated: 1) Is the Earth experiencing a global warming trend, and 2) if so, have humans contributed to it? Two more questions are implicated: 3) If human action contributes to global warming, which actions, and how much do they contribute? And 4) What can and should humans do about it, if anything?.
You seem to implicitly accept that there is a global warming trend currently underway, or to choose your battle ground on the basis of that assumption (“assuming for the sake of argument,” you might say). So let’s start there.
The record of current global warming acceleration corresponds precisely to the history of global carbon emissions associated with the industrial revolution. The complex and interacting dynamics by which such carbon emissions (and black soot emissions, and deforestation) cause global warming are very well understood. This is not “proof” that human activity causes global warming, because “proof” is a mathematical concept, not a scientific one. Scientific knowledge is based on the accumulation of evidence supporting a particular theory, not on conclusive proof that that theory is correct. The accumulation of evidence supporting the theory that human activity (particularly carbon emissions, black soot emissions, and deforestation) contributes to global warming is quite strong.
But the evidence that we can and do affect the Earth’s temperature by affecting both the balance between heat radiation out into space, and heat trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere through our affect on the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere is even stronger, about as close to a “known fact” regarding systemic dynamics as exists.
So, if the answer to question number 1 is that the Earth is in a warming trend, we can skip question number 2 and go right to questions 3 and 4: How do our behaviors affect rates of warming, and what, if anything, should we do to confront the challenges that a warming trend poses? Question number 2, in and of itself, is moot, except to the extent that it implies answers for questions 3 and 4. But the issue, in isolation, of whether we have caused global warming is largely beside the point. The real question, if global warming is a reality (which, frankly, it is), is, what should we do about it?
Since we have a very well-developed understanding of how carbon emissions and carbon sequestration affect the balance between heat radiation into space and heat retention in the atmosphere, we are faced with two options, that are poles of a continuum that can either be selected as alternatives, or in some or another balance found along the continuum: Should we (and to what extent should we) try to slow or halt global warming, or should we (and to what extent should we) prepare for the consequences of global warming?
I could go on, of course, but the point of this post is not to answer these questions: It is to indicate the nature of the challenge, the knowledge we have about it, what is relevant to facing the challenge, and what aspects of the current debate are simply misdirectional noise.
This has not been conclusively proven, and cannot be without an understanding of these larger system we do not currently have. No number of paragraphs are going to change that, Steve.
And no, I’m not willing to just give you the assumption the Earth is warming on the scale we see in the geologic record.
The solution to this “problem,” if one is willing to concede that there really is one, can come in the marketplace. If people come to consensus on this issue they will address it by free choice, and make money while they do it. If they do not it is because there is no consensus of opinion and you do not have the right to bring the economy to a halt over your opinion.
the rates of global warming is measured by taking core samples of glaciers, which show layers from successive seasonal melts and freezes, much like tree-rings, indicating the degree of net loss on a year-to-year basis over the course of centuries. These measures are the basis of the verified claim that the acceleration of global warming corresponds to the acceleration of carbon emissions since the industrial revolution.
Two, global warming is an externality that markets are systemically incapable of addressing because there are no individual property rights implicated. Markets do not function by “people” spontaneously collectively acting: They function by people individually or corporately acting. Government is the incorporated agent of the “people” you are referring to. Without that incorporated decision maker acting in the market on the people’s behalf, the market cannot deal with the problem we are talking about, as the vast majority of economists realize. The predominant modern economic paradigm is called “transaction cost economics,” due to the recognition that the transaction costs involved in exchanges increase with the number of people who have to bargain among themselves in order to arrive at a market solution. With a global externality such as global warming, the transaction costs of literally billions of decentralized individuals bargaining their way to a solution through market mechanisms alone are astronomical. This is the significance of Coase’s theorem, which predicts that in the absence of transaction costs, such issues are automatically solved by the market: The point is, that transaction costs are not absent.
It helps to know what you’re talking about, especially when you make specious claims about market dynamics, with an obvious lack of any actual understanding of the discipline of economics. There’s a reason why the overwhelming majority of professional economists disagree with your position (I don’t have the link, but the Economist actually did a survey of professional economists several months ago regarding whether they generally favor policies that lean lef or lean righ, with a huge majority leaning left): The mathematical modelling and empirical research generated by the discipline do not support your arbitrary pseudo-economic claims.
It was a bit inaccurate to say “no individual property rights are implicated.” It is more accurate to say that discrete actions do not affect discrete property rights. That’s the nature of a “public good” or “public bad.” When people make market-driven choices that result in carbon emissions, the cost to (all but one or two of) the hundreds of millions of property owners affected by the carbon emissions are not calculated in the price of the transaction: They are not parties to the transaction. That’s why the market produces such externalities with impunity. Reliance on the market to deal with something that is not incorporated into market exchanges is simply a statement of economic illiteracy, not of rational public policy.
Global warming makes it sound like a pleasant May day.
Crisis properly captures the coastal flooding, desertification and increased oceanic storm activity driven by human driven climate change.
No apology is necessary, because there is NO evidence disputing that climate change is happening and is being driven by human causes (O&G funded PR pieces are not research). The only issue are how fast is it happening, how will it effect weather patterns and how can we mitigate the impact.
You say “follow the money”? Who has more money O&G or environmentalists? Please.
that puts you in 9th grade?
I’ll bet it has nothing to do with preserving and protecting the environment.
I’ve met plenty of survivalists that live off the grid because they want to be prepared for Armageddon. Most of them were well-armed, bible-thumping, paranoid, creationists.
more of a 6 months of travail than a green motive
is absolutely akin to those who discard the theory of evolution and deny the Holocaust (not to mention the moon landing). One fifth of my non-leisure time these past four months was spent reviewing the scientific literature on the subject, and the current state of national and international legislation (remember, folks, my request for info on alternative energy technologies and laws?). The sheer quantity of mutually reinforcing measurements, observations, time-lines, correlations, and, in short, data, leave as little doubt about global warming, contributed to by human activity, as there is about the Earth revolving around the sun.
So, repeat those arbitrary assertions about genuine scientific doubt (which doesn’t exist among scientists, interestingly enough) all you want (never, of course, citing or linking to any reliable, or, for that matter, unreliable source to back up your empty assertions): It’s just a bunch of ignorant noise. (And I do mean “ignorant” in its core, etymological sense: Intentionally ignoring that which can be easily assertained).
Here are a few links to highly reputuable sources that make the same point I just did, but with the gravitas and credibility of having established credentials:
National Geographic
Union of Concerned Scientists
Pew Center
a list of governmental and peer reviewed studies
another portal into the virtually limitless governmental studies and academic peer-reviewed published research reinforcing the increasingly well-established fact of global warming, and of the human contribution to it
And so on, and so on, and so on….
Talk with the founder of the weather channel or Dr. Steven Gray of CSU or any of hundreds of others of very respected meteorologists who who call the man-made “global warming” theory total bunk. Back in the 1970s, people were warning of global cooling! You are entitled to believe what you want, but don’t treat it as fact. There are competing theories and we should be looking to sound science, not the advancement of political philosophies and an excuse to grow government.
Got links for that assertion of 100s of meteorologists? Otherwise, I don’t believe it.
I work with meteorologists. Many are very skeptical of global warming for 2 understandable, but self-centered reasons
1. The day-to-day variations in temperature greatly exceed the amount of warming called for by climate models.
2. Meteorologists rely on weather models. These models cannot accurately predict weather out to 7 days, so how could they possibly predict climate?
Most weather forecasters don’t know anything about climate research. They have never been concerned with long-term forecasts because that’s just not what they do.
One last point: The mets I know that are skeptical of global warming are not deniers of global warming. They just don’t think that it’s been proven. Or, if it’s proven, they just don’t think that it’s been proven to be manmade.
Steve Harvey posted several links to climate research. What do you have? Show us what you’ve got.
that would equate support then for that notion with AGW has been long debunked.
Here:
http://www.usatoday.com/weathe…
And here:
http://www.newscientist.com/ar…
And here:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/bl…
The later piece noting:
With a link to the study-
It is a fascinating little paper, have a read:
http://ams.confex.com/ams/88An…
I’ll listen to these guys based on the academic positions they earned by NOT studying this issue.
These guys are like Albert Einstein – respected scientists who get it wrong because of some heartfelt belief. Einstein famously took issue with the theories being developed that were the basis of quantum physics. “God does not play dice,” he said. Well, Einstein was wrong, as the fact that his criticisms never led to peer-reviewed studies supporting his view of things.
We’ll listen when the climate change deniers can back up their assertions with sound science and not internal beliefs.
whether the Holocaust occurred, and whether the moon landing was staged. There are even hundreds of “scientists” (almost none of whom are biologists, or who base their conclusions on scientific analysis) who “debunk” the theory of evolution (as compared to the tens of thousands who recognize it as a very well-supported scientific theory).
In fact, whereas the popular media, and blogs such as this, treat global warming as something that is debated in the scientific community, peer-reviewed professional journals DON’T. the measurements of, and evidence of global warming are as close to irrefutable as it comes. Look at a time-lapse photograph of any glacier or mountain peak over the last 100 years. Guess what you see. The human contribution to it is extraordinarily well-supported as well, from the actual dynamics by which it occurs, to the perfect match of escalation of carbon emissions and glacial melting rates.
In fact, there aren’t competing theories, any more than there are competing theories among historicans about whether the Holocaust occurred. There is simply a highly motivated radical community of intentional and focused ignorance, just as there is among Holocaust deniers.
I supplied you with the links. Show me the peer-reviewed academic research that supports your position. If you come up with one article raising the hair of a doubt about the prevalent conclusion among scientists studying this phenomenon, that will be a huge success. Then put that success up against the dozens of pages of cites to peer-reviewed articles that reach the oppositve conclusion.
You’re repeating completely unfounded bullshit. And that’s a fact.
KK said: “we should be looking to sound science, not the advancement of political philosophies.”
What is it with the right trying to coopt, in empty form, the words and phrases that express the substantial and authentic arguments on the left? Yes, KK, we SHOULD be looking to sound science, NOT the advancement of political philosophies. Exactly. Now, why not take that advice, and call me in the morning?
They know they can’t prove man is causing global warming, and they can’t explain to you why the earth has warmed and cooled repeatedly, ice caps melting completely, jungle planet–any of you idiots ever hear about the Cretaceous Seaway that used to cover Colorado? Where did all that water come from? Oh no, those dinosaurs farted their way into Al Gore’s nightmares!!
What this is really about is attacking energy, the heart of the American way of life. Because you are socialist traitors.
Yes the earth has warmed and cooled over time. But if it does so now it will wreak untold havoc on human society (as it did back then too).
We have this gigantic infrastructure set up to put food on everyone’s table. If the proper place for growing stuff moves – that will cause a giant drop in food production because you can’t hitch a farm to the truck and move it 500 miles north.
If the sea levels rise, we can’t slide coatal cities a couple of miles inland.
The lost goes on. THINK!
irrelevant “arguments.”
Just one quick lesson in logic: The cycles of warming and cooling in the geological history do not imply anything, one way or the other, regarding the question of whether humans are contributing to the warming that is currently occuring. Your argument is identical in structure to pointing out that humans have always died, and so there is no proof that the deaths associated with a particular war were caused by human actions, since humans have died throughout history with or without human intervention. Uh, what??!!
consistently stupid.
Steve Johnson was a reasonable guy. I don’t think Lundberg can defend this seat, not everybody in the 15 is a flat earther.
because I live in this district and would love to get rid of Lundberg. I’ve suffered through him being my “representative” and now am suffering under him “representing” me in the Senate.
But the numbers don’t stack up for Republicans–this SD has been gerrymandered to death to cut out every pocket of hardcore Dems and unless another Republican primaries Lundberg and wins, that is about the only change you will see in this seat any time soon. It’s one of the few red sections left in Northern Colorado.
Standing on the same ground as you here, but I read it differently. I don’t think we’re in that Colorado any more. Yes, the SD is gerrymandered to death, and yes, the Reds (appropriate irony) have historically held sway here. But look at the way Loveland city councilors (quietly) ran away from McWhinney last month, forcing him to give up his local bail out fantasies. Local community bottom lines are in trouble, so there’s less tolerance for the disorienting ideological rhetoric that passed for politics up here while the real deals were being cut behind the scenes by the Republican business machine. There’s a gap in the curtain, and unaffiliateds are growing tired of living in Oz. Even some of the Republicans are clicking their heels and trying to find a new “home.” If we have two “Republican” parties up here in 2010, I like Dem odds!
…will the state move the Mile High marker up the west capitol steps?
Say, where is a good source of information on sea level measurements from the last century or more?
I imagine that exists somewhere, likely the Greeks measured the sea way back when.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…
I’ll continue to look for data going back to the 1700s or later.
Looks like an opportunity for surface and subsurface water management.
1> Dams, think of the hydro power
2> time to recharge those aquafers, more surface storage and again, think of the hydro upsides.
The American people will remember the lies you told to harm our prosperity and tilt at windmills you cannot comprehend, and they will laugh at your graves.
Because it sure sounds like it.
Perhaps I am threatening the inanimate graves of your great great grandchildren with a little stray urine and some laughter when they realize how silly you were in school.
Please get a grip, no one is coming to harm you Mr. anonymous blogger.
Loyalty to party propaganda trumps reasoned analysis every time with these clowns.
Always with the Nazis and you people! Don’t even mention “Swastika Guy” again, ok?
He was front and center at the Tea Bag Barbecue, right next to Sen. Penry and the other members of the GOP elite on stage.
Talk to you at 3 PM, unless you have detention again.
Wow, you are a tribute to your cause–you’re a sleeper agent right? Trying to demonstrate how silly some of the wingnuts are? Without facts, just talking points, thinking that some 10th grade science class taught you something?
And the silly name ‘GOPwarrior’…very, very tough…
Was that you that called 9-1-1 when someone said ‘boo!’?
And you want to break the American way of life by attacking its heart, our bountiful energy. This makes you a traitor.
It’s not really that silly.
You don’t know anything about economics, but couch your folly in the pretense that you do. You can rant your jingoistic nonsense all you want, waiving your list of alleged communists in government, blacklisting, preaching narrow-minded bigotries and calling it patriotism, but you are the problem that reasonable people of good will have to confront on a daily basis, all over the globe, in one form or another.
You keep spewing, and we’ll keep coming along behind you cleaning up the mess, clearing away the debris of your bigotry and ignorance. And, by the way, for the time being, America has chosen to go the way of reasonable people of good will, and not the way of narrow-minded, poorly informed, profoundly ignorant jack-asses like you.
What gives you the right to call anyone who disagrees with you a traitor?
Our people are our heart. Our democracy, which we believe is the best political system in the world.
You’re yet another in a long line of halfwits who join the site just to piss on other people. I bet it gets you off.
And by the way, you are that silly.
spewing talking points devoid of substance, obviously insecure and wallowing in feelings of inadequacy…
GOPwarrior??? Really, what war have you fought? Or do you mean posting your stupid little pithy regurgitation that you picked up from the Manatee on ColoradoPols?
Rather than just bleat back what papa-sheep told you, perhaps try some original thought. For instance, explain what I have posted that makes me a socialist, and please define your term.
How am I working to break the back of America exactly? How does your perception of reality (the sky in your world is yellow I presume) mesh with the FACTS (you have heard of such things as facts perhaps? I can’t tell from your postings) that Ardy provided? (Oil and gas are currently glutted on the market, meanwhile the shale gas plays back east are cheaper and easier to develop and are already ‘at market’ not needing to be shipped an additional 1,000 miles…)
See, these are reasonable and thoughtful questions. If you were a real ‘warrior’ you would not run like a zit-faced eighth grader from addressing them, but would take the fight head on.
You’re playing ping pong and imagine it’s hand-to-hand combat, dressed up in your camo-underoos no doubt, while adults are discussing issues, even when disagreeing, based on solid premises, real information, and sound reasoning.
You might try that, if you are able, which I doubt…
…he’s just mad because he hasn’t had his diaper changed. They really have become laughable. Any insult he throws at anyone on our side should be worn like a badge of honor. I wish people would display some level of thought to what they do. But as this person shows, that doesn’t happen a lot.
You presume much. Since you’re an authoriy on truth, educate us all on why you’re party is being run by a radio talk-show host.
Amazingly the Democrats could increase their Senate Majority next year. Once totally safe Republican seats held by Senators Lundberg and Renfroe are now in play. Both have alienated Republican and Independent voters with their bizarre conduct.
Jim Riesberg will likely challenge Renfroe. Randy Fischer might challenge Lundberg.
…the same guy who did this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
I’m sorry. I just couldn’t help myself. 😉