Until you watch this video, you may think you have an idea about wealth distribution in the United states and about how fucked up a capitalist society can be. But I promise you, watching this video will leave you more informed, more horrified and more blown away than you can imagine. It is essential viewing and needs to be shared around.

From Working America, uploaded by Upworthy.

Reddits Science forum banned all climate change deniers.
How cool is that!
I think all newspapers should do the same.
But unfortunately the opposite is happening in Australia where the only official people allowed to go to the climate change meetings that matter are climate skeptics!
It's enough to make me scream.

Read about Reddit in an article by Nathan Allen here:

In addition to my career as a PhD chemist, I am one of a select few who enjoy the privilege of moderating content on reddit.com’s science forum. The science forum is a small part of reddit, but it nonetheless enjoys over 4 million subscribers. By comparison, that’s roughly twice the circulation of The New York Times.

The forum, known as /r/science, provides a digital space for discussions about recent, peer-reviewed scientific publications. This puts us (along with /r/AskScience) on the front line of the science-public interface. On our little page, scientists and nonscientists can connect through discussions on everything from subatomic particles to interstellar astrophysics.

As a moderator of this discussion, I’ve observed scientific discourse across a wide variety of disciplines. I consider it a microcosm, representative of the vast range of views that can be supported by empirical evidence. Importantly, it provides the same window for those who are not scientists, who do not regularly talk with PhDs, and who may be unfamiliar with how science is discussed by scientists. In essence, it is a window into the Ivory Tower.

Given that our users are mainly academics (and all are nerds), the discussion generally resembles any scientific debate. That is, there are always numerous links to peer-reviewed science to support positions, people don’t deliberately mislead or misrepresent content, and there is a basic level of respect shared regardless of position. When a user strays from such decorum, they are kindly warned and, if necessary, the comment is removed.

Some issues, however, are particularly contentious. While evolution and vaccines do have their detractors, no topic consistently evokes such rude, uninformed, and outspoken opinions as climate change.

Instead of the reasoned and civil conversations that arise in most threads, when it came to climate change the comment sections became a battleground. Rather than making thoughtful arguments based on peer-reviewed science to refute man-made climate change, contrarians immediately resorted to aggressive behaviors. On one side, deniers accused any of the hard-working scientists whose research supported and furthered our understanding of man-made climate change of being bought by “Big Green.” On the other side, deniers were frequently insulted and accused of being paid to comment on reddit by “Big Oil.”

After some time interacting with the regular denier posters, it became clear that they could not or would not improve their demeanor. These problematic users were not the common “internet trolls” looking to have a little fun upsetting people. Such users are practically the norm on reddit. These people were true believers, blind to the fact that their arguments were hopelessly flawed, the result of cherry-picked data and conspiratorial thinking. They had no idea that the smart-sounding talking points from their preferred climate blog were, even to a casual climate science observer, plainly wrong. They were completely enamored by the emotionally charged and rhetoric-based arguments of pundits on talk radio and Fox News.

As a scientist myself, it became clear to me that the contrarians were not capable of providing the science to support their “skepticism” on climate change. The evidence simply does not exist to justify continued denial that climate change is caused by humans and will be bad. There is always legitimate debate around the cutting edge of research, something we see regularly. But with climate change, science that has been established, constantly tested, and reaffirmed for decades was routinely called into question.

Over and over, solid peer-reviewed science was insulted as corrupt, while blog posts from fossil-fuel-funded groups were cited as objective fact. Worst of all, they didn’t even get the irony of quoting oil-funded blogs that called university scientists biased.

The end result was a disservice to science and to rational exploration, not to mention the scholarly audience we are proud to have cultivated. When 97 percent of climate scientists agree that man is changing the climate, we would hope the comments would at least acknowledge if not reflect such widespread consensus. Since that was not the case, we needed more than just an ad hoc approach to correct the situation.

The answer was found in the form of proactive moderation. About a year ago, we moderators became increasingly stringent with deniers. When a potentially controversial submission was posted, a warning would be issued stating the rules for comments (most importantly that your comment isn’t a conspiracy theory) and advising that further violations of the rules could result in the commenter being banned from the forum.

As expected, several users reacted strongly to this. As a site, reddit is passionately dedicated to free speech, so we expected considerable blowback. But the widespread outrage we feared never materialized, and the atmosphere greatly improved.

We discovered that the disruptive faction that bombarded climate change posts was actually substantially smaller than it had seemed. Just a small handful of people ran all of the most offensive accounts. What looked like a substantial group of objective skeptics to the outside observer was actually just a few bitter and biased posters with more opinions then evidence.

Negating the ability of this misguided group to post to the forum quickly resulted in a change in the culture within the comments. Where once there were personal insults and bitter accusations, there is now discussion of the relevant aspects of the research. Instead of (almost comically) paranoid and delusional conspiracy theories, we have knowledgeable users explaining complicated concepts to non-scientists who are simply interested in understanding the research. While we won’t claim /r/science is perfect, users seem happy with the changes made.

Like our commenters, professional climate change deniers have an outsized influence in the media and the public. And like our commenters, their rejection of climate science is not based on an accurate understanding of the science but on political preferences and personality. As moderators responsible for what millions of people see, we felt that to allow a handful of commenters to so purposefully mislead our audience was simply immoral.

So if a half-dozen volunteers can keep a page with more than 4 million users from being a microphone for the antiscientific, is it too much to ask for newspapers to police their own editorial pages as proficiently?

Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president.

How damn cool is this guy!

Here are ten reasons to love him - by Medea Banjamin
President José Mujica of Uruguay, a 78-year-old former Marxist guerrilla who spent 14 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, recently visited the United States to meet with President Obama and speak at a variety of venues. He told Obama that Americans should smoke less and learn more languages. He lectured a roomful of businessmen at the US Chamber of Commerce about the benefits of redistributing wealth and raising workers’ salaries. He told students at American University that there are no “just wars.” Whatever the audience, he spoke extemporaneously and with such brutal honesty that it was hard not to love the guy. Here are 10 reasons you, too, should love President Mujica.

1. He lives simply and rejects the perks of the presidency. Mujica has refused to live at the Presidential Palace or have a motorcade. He lives in a one-bedroom house on his wife’s farm and drives a 1987 Volkswagen. “There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress,” said Mujica, referring to his time in prison. He donates over 90% of his $12,000/month salary to charity so he makes the same as the average citizen in Uruguay. When called “the poorest president in the world,” Mujica says he is not poor. “A poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more. I don’t live in poverty, I live in simplicity. There’s very little that I need to live.”

2. He supported the nation’s groundbreaking legalization of marijuana. “In no part of the world has repression of drug consumption brought results. It’s time to try something different,” Mujica said. So this year, Uruguay became the first country in the world to regulate the legal production, sale, and consumption of marijuana. The law allows individuals to grow a certain amount each year and the government controls the price of marijuana sold at pharmacies. The law requires consumers, sellers, and distributors to be licensed by the government. Uruguay’s experience aims to take the market away from the ruthless drug traffickers and treat drug addiction as a public health issue. Their experiment will have reverberations worldwide.

3. In August 2013, Mujica signed the bill making Uruguay the second nation in Latin America (after Argentina) to legalize gay marriage. He said that legalizing gay marriage is simply recognizing reality. “Not to legalize it would be unnecessary torture for some people,” he said. In recent years, Uruguay has also moved to allow adoption by gay couples and openly gay people to serve in the armed forces.

4. He’s not afraid to confront corporate abuses, as evidenced by the epic struggle his government is waging against the American tobacco giant Philip Morris. A former smoker, Mujica says that tobacco is a killer that needs to be brought under control. But Philip Morris is suing Uruguay for $25 million at the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes because of the country’s tough smoking laws that prohibit smoking in enclosed public spaces and require warning labels, including graphic images of the health effects. Uruguay is the first Latin American country and the fifth nation worldwide to implement a ban on smoking in enclosed public places. Philip Morris, the largest cigarette manufacturer in the United States, has huge global business interests (and a well-paid army of lawyers). Uruguay’s battle against the tobacco Goliath will also have global repercussions.

5. He supported the legalization of abortion in Uruguay (his predecessor had vetoed the bill). The law is very limited, compared to laws in the US and Europe. It allows abortions within the first 12 weeks of the pregnancy and requires women to meet with a panel of doctors and social workers on the risks and possible effects of an abortion. But this law is the most liberal abortion law in socially conservative, Catholic Latin America and is clearly a step in the right direction for women’s reproductive rights.

6. He’s an environmentalist trying to limit needless consumption. At the Rio+20 Summit in 2012, he criticized the model of development pushed by affluent societies. “We can almost recycle everything now. If we lived within our means – by being prudent – the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction,” he said. He also recently rejected a joint energy project with Brazil that would have provided his country with cheap coal energy because of his concern for the environment.

7. He has focusing on redistributing his nation’s wealth, claiming that his administration has reduced poverty from 37% to 11%. “Businesses just want to increase their profits; it’s up to the government to make sure they distribute enough of those profits so workers have the money to buy the goods they produce,” he told businessmen at the US Chamber of Commerce. “It’s no mystery–the less poverty, the more commerce. The most important investment we can make is in human resources.” His government’s redistributive policies include setting prices for essential commodities such as milk and providing free computers and education for every child.

8. He has offered to take detainees cleared for release from Guantanamo. Mujica has called the detention center at Guantanamo Bay a “disgrace” and insisted that Uruguay take responsibility to help close the facility. The proposal is unpopular in Uruguay, but Mujica, who was a political prisoner for 14 years, said he is “doing this for humanity.”

9. He is opposed to war and militarism. “The world spends $2 billion a minute on military spending,” he exclaimed in horror to the students at American University. “I used to think there were just, noble wars, but I don’t think that anymore,” said the former armed guerrilla. “Now I think the only solution is negotiations. The worst negotiation is better than the best war, and the only way to insure peace is to cultivate tolerance.”

10. He has an adorable three-legged dog, Manuela! Manuela lost a foot when Mujica accidentally ran over it with a tractor. Since then, Mujica and Manuela have been almost inseparable.

Mujica’s influence goes far beyond that of the leader of a tiny country of only 3 million people. In a world hungry for alternatives, the innovations that he and his colleagues are championing have put Uruguay on the map as one of the world’s most exciting experiments in creative, progressive governance.

Norway, Sweden, and Portugal seem to be especially doing really well producing renewable energy for consumption. That's because their governments have invested heavily in developing solar, wind and hydro power.
For example, in January 2014, 91% of the monthly needed Portuguese electricity consumption was generated by renewable sources, although the real figure stands at 78%, as 14% was exported .
And in Australia we have a government who has just cut ALL funding to renewable energy development and research, and who, instead, has increased financial incentives for the fossil fuel and mining industry.
The Prime Minister Abbott would rather spend $12.4 billion on useless fighter jets, than invest for clean energy for the future, for our children.
This is disgraceful and so embarrassingly backward-thinking it leaves me (almost) speechless.

The Politics Of Carbon And The Price Of Doing What's Right

By Peter Burdon

If there's no room in politics anymore for principled positions, then things are going to get very, very hot. Dr Peter Burdon explains.

Many readers will remember the moment in December 2009 when two liberal senators defied the newly elected opposition leader Tony Abbott and crossed the floor to vote with the Rudd government in favour of a cap-and-trade system of emissions trading (the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme).

This offered the Australian Greens an historic opportunity to provide Australia with a price on carbon. But instead, they voted with the opposition, Independent Senator Nick Xenophon, and Family First Senator Steve Fielding to vote down the scheme.

Five years on, a lot has changed in the political landscape. Most recently the repeal of the Gillard government’s Clean Energy Future Bill and a slew of political biographies has sparked renewed interest in the dramatic events of December 2009.

Former climate change minister, Greg Combet captures a popular sentiment about the Australian Greens in his recent biography The Fights of My Life:

In an act of political lunacy and environmental vandalism, the Greens voted with the opposition in the Senate to kill the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

According to this view, the Greens are “excessively pure”, “divorced from the real world” and do not respect the “necessity of compromise” in contemporary politics.

Moreover, commentators like Phillip Chubb have argued that the Greens made a “major blunder” and that had carbon pricing been realised in 2009 “it would almost certainly have been a feature of the Australian economy and society for good.”

There is considerable merit to Chubb’s analysis. For example, had the CPRS been introduced in 2009 the Australian people would have had five years of lived experience of a price on carbon. This experience would have taken the sting out of Abbott’s scare campaign, and claims that a carbon price would cause unimaginable price rises, destroy the Australian economy and wipe regional towns off the map.

Yet the way Combet and others frame the defeat of the CPRS obscures, in important ways, the strategic failures of the Rudd government. These include indecisiveness, failure to consult with stakeholders (including the Greens and the Union movement) and the critical failure to press their signature climate policy through a double dissolution election.

More importantly, while many commentators have been quick to place blame on the Greens, few have properly considered the role and value of principled decision making in politics today.

I am not talking here about moral absolutism – the kind which Paul Kelly and his colleagues at the Australian decry. Rather I am referring to the courage to fight for a principle because one believes it to be right and just. This does not negate the role of compromise and pragmatism in politics. But at some point, authentic leaders must draw a line in the sand and hold their ground.

Neither Bob Brown nor Christine Milne regrets their decision to join with the opposition to defeat the CPRS. Speaking at the National Press Club in September 2013 Senator Milne defended her party’s decision:

If we had had the CPRS in place now, the carbon price would be less than $1, there would be no mechanism for increasing the target and we would be stuck with a completely ineffectual scheme…

While I don’t advocate “crystal ball” politics it is important to understand fully what drove the Greens to take (what can only be described as) a drastic step and join the Coalition to vote down a price on carbon.

In December 2008, Rudd announced that the CPRS target would be an unconditional 5 per cent and a conditional 15 per cent reduction in emissions below 2000 levels. Remarkably, the policy did not contain a mechanism for raising the target above 15 per cent and gifted billions of dollars in subsidies to heavy polluters.

Moreover, Bob Brown notes in his recent biography Optimism that

The Rudd Formula could not later be lifted without massive taxpayer compensation to the worst polluters.

It was easy for scientists and environmentalists to demonstrate the gross inadequacy of the CPRS targets. In a recent interview, Penny Wong, the climate change minister under Rudd, conceded the validity of these criticisms:

I probably should have put 25 per cent on the table in the white paper. That was an option and I probably should have pushed for that.

In May 2009, Rudd and Wong promised the Southern Cross Climate Coalition (consisting of groups like the Australian Conservation Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Climate Institute and the Australian Council of Trade Unions) that an extra unconditional target of 25 per cent would apply “if the world agrees to an ambitious global deal to stabilise levels of CO2 equivalent to 450 parts per million or lower by mid century.”

Lawyers like promises like this – full of caveats. But remarkably the SCCC agreed to the government’s inadequate and compromised proposal. The Greens decision to vote down the CPRS put them at odds with traditional allies and was a rare moment of conviction and authenticity in contemporary politics.

Moreover, as Clive Hamilton suggested:

The barrage of attacks on the Greens for that decision reflects outrage at the party’s refusal to go along with the power structure, to play the game whose rules are set by the established order.

It should be obvious to anyone seriously engaged in climate politics that it is ties between the fossil fuel industry and Government and the advocacy of the “greenhouse mafia” that has stood in the way of progressive climate policy in this country (and indeed around the world). A historical narrative that blames the Greens for the failures in Australian climate policy simply diverts our attention from the real source of the problem.

There is, I hope, still room for ethics and principled decision making in Australian politics. That experienced commentators like Combet could describe the Greens as environmental vandals simply demonstrates how Orwellian the dominant conversation has become.

Indeed, if it is “political lunacy” to draw a line in the sand and fight for policies that confront the full facts of climate science then, I submit, that our future depends on us all getting a little bit crazy.