Author Archives: fuirpycf

Silicon Valley’s Gender Problem, Explained in 2 Photos

by fuirpycf Posted on June 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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Last year, CNET’s Dan Ackerman tweeted a photo of the restroom lines at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The message: Silicon Valley is mostly men.

Today was the WWDC 2014 keynote and Ackerman revisited the scene.

Behold: Some ladies! Not many though. In fact, basically none. Silicon Valley’s very real woman problem remains.

We will not be happy until these lines are equal in length.

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Silicon Valley’s Gender Problem, Explained in 2 Photos

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Here’s Who the Money Men Are Backing So Far in the Republican Field

by fuirpycf Posted on February 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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Wesley Lowery takes a look today at who all of Mitt Romney’s donors are supporting these days. As Lowery says, this shouldn’t really be taken as a look at “Romney money.” It’s more a look at who’s getting some love from wealthy mainstream Republicans. The answer, it turns out, is unsurprising:

  1. Jeb Bush
  2. Scott Walker
  3. Paul Ryan

This makes sense to me. If I had to pick a top three, this would be it, with the order depending a lot on who decides to get serious about running. I think Paul Ryan would be very formidable, with strong appeal to both tea party types and mainstream types, but it’s unclear if he has any interest in 2016. Jeb Bush is a classic candidate who, again, has some appeal in both camps, but has to decide if he thinks he can overcome the obvious baggage of being a Bush. Scott Walker has to win reelection this year—and show that he can do it handily—before he takes any further steps.

As for the rest of the field, I continue to think that (a) Chris Christie is toast, (b) Rand Paul is a vanity candidate, and (c) the rest of them are going to tear each other limb from limb fighting for the title of king of the wingnuts. Naturally I reserve the right to change my mind later and pretend that I never wrote this.

STANDARD CAVEAT: Yes, it’s ridiculous to be talking about this so far ahead of the election. I apologize. But my excuse is that this is invisible primary stuff, and that really does matter this far out. Besides, talking about the “invisible primary” marks you as a sophisticate, and I wanted an opportunity to do that.

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Here’s Who the Money Men Are Backing So Far in the Republican Field

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Republicans Are Blowing Up Yet Another Governing Norm

by fuirpycf Posted on September 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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I was chatting with a friend last night about the breakdown of governing norms in American politics. You know the drill: routine filibusters, mid-decade redistricting, flat refusals to allow votes on executive appointments, etc. But now there’s a new one on the scene. It’s a little more subtle than the others, though, so permit me an analogy.

If I ask my neighbor for a cup of sugar and he tells me to get lost, everyone agrees that he’s being a dick. Under our usual social norms, that’s a pretty reasonable kind of favor to ask. On the other hand, if I ask him to give me his car because I totaled mine, everyone agrees that I’m the one being unreasonable. That goes well beyond the kind of favor you’d normally expect from a neighbor.

The problem with this norm is that it’s not really provable. Is asking for a cup of sugar really a reasonable request? Says who? Conversely, why can’t I have your car? I say that’s perfectly reasonable. Sometimes stuff like this ends up in court, but for the most part we rely on a social norm of reasonableness to adjudicate things like this. It’s the only practical way to keep society humming along.

But this is the latest norm to go down for the count in Washington DC. House Republicans have decided to issue a laundry list of demands in return for raising the debt ceiling that go way, way beyond the usual bargaining norms of Washington. If they had proposed, say, a cut in SNAP funding, that would be politics as usual, to be fought along the usual lines. But demanding the elimination of a historic piece of social welfare legislation? Or the absurd ransom note on the right, courtesy of Steve Benen? That’s just not the same thing and everyone knows it. Unfortunately, the norms of the press don’t really allow them to say that. So you get story after story about all the previous government shutdowns, or about the various hobbyhorses that have been attached to debt ceiling legislation in the past, with the strong implication that, really, what’s happening today isn’t all that unusual.

It is, though, and everyone knows it perfectly well. But you can’t prove it. So reporters end up in he-said-she-said mode and the public ends up evenly divided about whether Republicans are bargaining in good faith.

And with that, yet another governing norm is on life support. The problem is that in any complex culture, norms are every bit as important as formal rules—something that, in other contexts, conservatives harangue us about constantly. They should think a little harder about why they feel that way as they go about their business of blowing up Capitol Hill. There might actually be a good reason that all these norms have evolved organically over the past couple of centuries.

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Republicans Are Blowing Up Yet Another Governing Norm

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Obama: I will only OK Keystone if it won’t significantly increase CO2 emissions

by fuirpycf Posted on June 25, 2013

Obama: I will only OK Keystone if it won’t significantly increase CO2 emissions

By Lisa Hymas

Reuters/Larry Downing

Big news from President Obama’s climate speech: He says he won’t approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline if it will “significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

It’s hard to know exactly what he means by that, but it’s a surprise that he mentioned Keystone at all. Pundits expected he would keep silent on the issue.

Here’s what he said:

I know there’s been … a lot of controversy surrounding the proposed Keystone pipeline that would carry oil from Canadian tar sands down to refineries in the Gulf. And the State Department is going through the final stages of evaluating the proposal. That’s how it’s always been done. But I do want to be clear: Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward.

It seems obvious that Keystone XL would significantly increase carbon emissions by encouraging development and facilitating transport of the dirtiest fossil fuel on earth — tar-sands oil. But in its draft environmental impact statement on the pipeline, the State Department asserted otherwise.

The U.S. EPA says State is wrong and argues that Keystone would notably boost greenhouse gas emissions. Even Canadian tar-sands boosters say Keystone is necessary in order to increase their oil production: “Long-term, we do need Keystone to be able to grow the volumes in Canada,” Steve Laut, president of big oil company Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., said last month.

Climate activists put so much pressure on Obama over Keystone that he felt compelled to address it. He certainly hasn’t killed the pipeline, but it’s notable that he attached a climate litmus test to it.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.

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Obama: I will only OK Keystone if it won’t significantly increase CO2 emissions

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Manhattan to see more killer heat waves

by fuirpycf Posted on May 21, 2013

Manhattan to see more killer heat waves

By John Upton

Shutterstock

/ Joshua HavivManhattan, one of the places where climate change will kill people.

Climate change is expected to boost homicidal heat waves in Manhattan, while cold snaps in the densely packed borough should become slightly less deadly.

Researchers from Columbia University and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention used climate models and two emissions scenarios to project seasonal patterns in temperature-related deaths in Manhattan. In all 32 of the scenarios developed by the researchers, the spike in summertime heat-related deaths was forecast to more than outweigh the decline in deaths caused by cold weather.

The study was published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change. “Monthly analyses showed that the largest percentage increases [in deaths] may occur in May and September,” the scientists wrote.

From Climate Central:

The study found that heat-related mortality may rise 20 percent by the 2020s, and in some worst-case scenarios, it could increase by 90 percent or more by the 2080s, and the net temperature-related mortality, which includes the drop in deaths related to cold weather, could jump by a third compared to current levels. …

Some other studies have claimed that as heat wave-related deaths increase, they will be offset by a reduction in cold weather-related deaths, keeping the net change in mortality low or possibly even resulting in fewer temperature-related deaths per year. This study, however, finds the opposite to be true.

Extreme heat is already the No. 1 weather-related killer in the U.S., killing an average of 117 people per year during the 2003-2012 period. Hot temperatures can contribute to cardiovascular disease, aggravate respiratory illness, and cause heat stroke, among other life-threatening conditions.

Even a small amount of global warming can have a large effect on weather extremes, as recent studies have shown.

City dwellers can expect to be hit particularly hard by the heat waves that are growing in frequency around the world, as The Guardian reports:

Last year, the hottest summer since record-keeping began in the US, saw a string of days on which the temperature hit more than 37.7C (100F) in a number of US cities.

The week-long heatwave killed 82 people, according to figures compiled by the Associated Press.

In large metropolitan areas, such as New York, the impact of those temperature extremes are compounded by densely built-up areas. Cities such as Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and St Louis have also recorded sharp rises in deaths due to heart attacks and strokes during heatwaves, according to the draft of the National Climate Assessment, which was released last year.

“Urban heat islands, combined with an ageing population and increased urbanisation, are projected to increase the vulnerability of urban populations to heat-related health impacts in the future,” the assessment said.

Hot enough for ya?

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who

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