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Senate Republicans use Palestine as an excuse not to fund climate agency

by BrookeM145 Posted on April 20, 2016

Senate Republicans use Palestine as an excuse not to fund climate agency

By and on Apr 20, 2016commentsShare

This story was originally published by Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

More than two dozen Republican senators this week asked Secretary of State John Kerry not to provide any funding for the United States’ involvement in the United Nations effort to address climate change, saying they object to the U.N. treating Palestine as a state.

The Palestinians joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international treaty that governs action on climate change, in March. On Monday, the group of 28 senators, led by Wyoming Republican John Barrasso, argued in a letter to Kerry that — because of a 1994 law barring federal funds from being distributed to any U.N. program that grants membership to a state or organization that lacks “internationally recognized attributes of statehood” — the UNFCCC should not receive U.S. funding.

It may not be entirely a coincidence that this letter comes from a group of senators who, by and large, don’t really believe climate change is an issue the U.S. should be addressing at all.

Among the letter’s signatories: Republican Sens. Roy Blunt (Mo.), John Boozman (Ark.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Bill Cassidy (La.), Dan Coats (Ind.), John Cornyn (Texas), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Steve Daines (Mont.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Jim Inhofe (Okla.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), James Lankford (Okla.), Mike Lee (Utah), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Mike Rounds (S.D.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), John Thune (S.D.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Pat Toomey (Pa.), David Vitter (La.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.).

They’re not all climate change deniers, per se. But Barrasso has said that the climate “is constantly changing” and that “the role human activity plays is not known.” Inhofe, who is chair of the Senate Committee on Environment And Public Works, wrote a whole book about how climate change is “the greatest hoax.” Rubio has spouted every type of climate denial possible. Cornyn has said he believes humans can influence the environment, but he doesn’t want the feds “in charge of trying to micromanage” the issue.

“The U.S. government does not recognize the ‘State of Palestine,’ which is not a sovereign state and does not possess the ‘internationally recognized attributes of statehood,’” the letter reads. “Therefore, the UNFCCC, as an affiliated organization of the U.N., granted full membership to the Palestinians, an organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood. As a result, current law prohibits distribution of U.S. taxpayer funds to the UNFCCC and its related entities.”

The lawmakers have some precedent for this argument. In 2011, the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization lost U.S. funding — which made up about 22 percent of its budget — after allowing the Palestinians full membership. The U.S. later lost its voting rights to the UNESCO general assembly as a result. Kerry said last year that he planned to work with Congress to restore U.S. funding to the organization.

State Department spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday that he was aware of the lawmakers’ letter but declined to comment further.

The Palestinians have endeavored to gradually join U.N. organizations and treaties as a way of gaining international recognition after several rounds of failed bilateral negotiations with the Israelis. The Palestinians gained non-member observer status at the U.N. in 2012, and the Palestinian flag was flown at the U.N. headquarters in New York for the first time last year during the annual general assembly, but they still lack full member status.

The Obama administration opposes Palestinian efforts to gain statehood through U.N. recognition, but the senators’ letter criticizes the administration for failing to block the Palestinians from gaining recognition within the UNFCCC.

“We urge the administration to clarify, both publicly and privately, that the United States does not consider the ‘State of Palestine’ to be a sovereign state, and to work diligently to prevent the Palestinians from being recognized as a sovereign state for purposes of joining U.N. affiliated organizations, treaties, conventions, and agreements,” the lawmakers wrote.

The United States has pledged to give $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, which was created so that industrialized countries can help developing nations address climate change. It’s seen as a pivotal part of the deal reached at the U.N. summit last December, which nations will begin officially signing this week.

The UNFCCC was created in 1992 to provide a mechanism for international coordination on addressing climate change. The United States provides funding to support the UNFCCC secretariat and other activities, as do the 196 other parties to the convention.

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Senate Republicans use Palestine as an excuse not to fund climate agency

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After New York Win, Clinton Campaign Says Sanders’ Attacks Help Republicans

by KrystleLaughlin Posted on April 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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After a decisive victory in New York on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton’s campaign called on Bernie Sanders to strike a more positive tone in the final two months of the primary contest, hinting that the senator from Vermont should ultimately leave the race gracefully without damaging the party’s chances of winning in the fall. As an example for how Sanders should conduct his campaign, a Clinton aide pointed to how the then-Sen. Clinton helped unite the party behind Barack Obama in 2008.

Speaking with reporters after Clinton’s victory rally in Manhattan Tuesday night, Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri called on Sanders to run a more positive, issue-based campaign. “He needs to decide as he closes out the Democratic primary, if he is going to continue on the destructive path that he started down in the New York primary where he is making personal character attacks against her that mimic the attacks that Republicans make and aid Republicans, or if he is going to end this primary the way that he promised to run—the kind of campaign he said he would run—that was focused on issues,” she said. “There’s no question that Sen. Sanders, that the behavior of him and his campaign has been destructive.”

Palmieri pointed to Sanders’ recent comment that Clinton is not qualified to be president—a remark Sanders quickly walked back—as well as his assertion in the last debate that he questioned her judgment. She also noted that the Sanders campaign on Monday accused the Clinton campaign of campaign finance violations.

Palmieri cited Clinton’s own example in the 2008 primary against Obama as a guide for Sanders. Because Clinton stayed in that race until June, she said the Clinton team respects Sanders’ decision to see the race through to the end. But, she noted, Clinton did not contest Obama’s win at the Democratic National Convention in Denver that year.

Palmieri did not note the nasty tone of the 2008 contest. “I think she set a gold standard for how people who don’t end up with the nomination, who lose in that effort, should come together and help the party,” she said. “Given the primary that they went through, where they both went all the way to the end, very hard fought, to come and ask to play that role and be the person to who says, ‘By acclamation, I say this party stands behind this nominee and he’s going to be our next president’…that’s what we have seen happen before. We think that can happen again.”

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After New York Win, Clinton Campaign Says Sanders’ Attacks Help Republicans

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Could a Typo Help Save the Planet?

by HubertElzy2 Posted on April 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The United States and China are leading a push to bring the Paris climate accord into force much faster than even the most optimistic projections—aided by a typographical glitch in the text of the agreement.

More than 150 governments, including 40 heads of state, are expected at a symbolic signing ceremony for the agreement at the United Nations on April 22, which is Earth Day.

It’s the largest one-day signing of any international agreement, according to the UN.

But leaders will really be looking to see which countries go beyond mere ceremony and legally join the agreement, which would bind them to the promises made in Paris last December to keep warming below the agreed target of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

So far, the US, China, Canada and a host of other countries have promised to join this year—boosting the hopes of bringing the Paris deal into force before the initial target date of 2020—possibly as early as 2016 or 2017, according to officials and analysts.

That is well before the timeline originally envisaged at Paris. Environment ministers attending the World Bank spring meetings this week said the faster pace indicated serious commitment to dealing with the global challenge.

The accelerated timeline would have one obvious advantage for Barack Obama. The standard withdrawal clause on any such agreement would force a future Republican president to wait four years before quitting Paris, according to legal experts.

An earlier start date could also turbo-charge the agreement, providing momentum for deeper emissions cuts.

It could also help efforts to attain the more ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C (2 degrees F)—which would give a better chance of survival to small islands and other countries on the front lines of climate change.

Christiana Figueres, who heads the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, has said global emissions need to peak by 2020 to have any chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C. There has already been about 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) of warming above pre-industrial levels.

“Early entry into force—we are very committed to making that happen,” Catherine McKenna, Canada’s environment and climate change minister, told a panel at the World Bank last week. “We can’t just now rest on our laurels and have a nice signing on Earth Day, and then we all go home.”

She told the Guardian Canada was committed to signing the agreement this year.

The push to bring the climate agreement into force quickly is in sharp contrast to the earlier international efforts to fight climate change through the Kyoto Protocol, which did not take effect for four years.

Eliza Northrop, an analyst at the World Resources Institute, said there was growing momentum behind an early approval of the agreement.

“It’s likely it could come into effect in 2017. It could even happen this year,” she said.

Governments at the Paris climate meeting had initially set the start date of the agreement in 2020—with intense discussion over whether that start date should be at the start or end of the year, according to diplomats.

The 2020 date remained in the negotiating drafts almost until the very end, the diplomats said. But unaccountably the final draft prepared by France left out the entire clause. By that point, after a few late-night negotiating sessions, a number of countries did not notice the omission.

The agreement, the first time all countries agreed to emissions cuts and other actions to fight climate change, aims to limit warming to below 2 degrees C and move towards a zero-carbon economy by the end of the century.

But it’s a tall order. The agreement needs to be approved by 55 countries accounting for at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions to come into force.

The US and China committed to join the agreement this year—but that still leaves a gap of more than 15 percent of global emissions.

A number of countries, including India and Japan, require their parliaments to approve the Paris agreement—a process which could take time.

The European Union will need agreement from its 28 member states before it can join the agreement—which makes it highly unlikely to be in a position to join early on.

“The assumption is that you have to do this without the EU to get to that 55 percent hurdle, if you want to see that in the next year or so,” said Alden Meyer, strategy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

That will force governments to cobble together a coalition of smaller countries if they hope to reach the 55 percent emissions threshold.

Possible contenders include India, Mexico, the Philippines, and Australia.

So far, about 10 countries have said they would join the agreement this year.

On Wednesday, Román Macaya, Costa Rica’s ambassador to Washington, said his country would join the agreement in 2016. Palau, Switzerland, Fiji, and the Marshall Islands have also said they will approve the agreement this year.

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Could a Typo Help Save the Planet?

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Ted Cruz’s Daughter Schools Him on Taylor Swift

by ElsieGiltner Posted on April 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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The CNN Town Hall with Ted Cruz and his family on Wednesday night began with host Anderson Cooper talking to the candidate about the usual political subjects, including his thoughts about GOP front-runner Donald Trumps’ vocal opposition to the current system of gathering delegates in advance of the Republican National Convention. Cruz said Trump is acting like a “union boss thug” by threatening delegates and noted that he’s only complaining about the process because recently he has lost several key primaries. “In the last three weeks there have been 11 elections in 4 states. And we have beaten Donald in all of 11 of them,” Cruz said. “He’s unhappy about that.”

When Heidi Cruz joined her husband on stage and audience members came to the mic, the questions moved from the political to the personal: What was their first date? (A dinner when the two were working on the Bush campaign in 2000). What did she think was his “most annoying” quality? (His iPhone). Cruz also told the audience that he loves movies, but his wife isn’t interested in them, and after The Princess Bride, his favorite movies are The Godfather series, including The Godfather Part III.

But the real highlight of the evening came when Cruz’s two young daughters, dressed in identical yellow dresses, were asked who they would first want to invite to visit the White House. Caroline, whose eighth birthday is on Thursday, and five-year-old Catherine, were shy about naming their favorite pop star, but their mother Heidi answered for them: “The girls would love to have their first guest be Taylor Swift,” she said.

The girls may not have had much to say on the Cruz vs. Trump delegate fight, but they weighed in on a different kind of “Bad Blood” (#sorrynotsorry). The whole family exchange was pretty adorable.

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Ted Cruz’s Daughter Schools Him on Taylor Swift

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No new lead crises in 5 years? Clinton has a plan

by VeroniqCollier Posted on April 13, 2016

Hillary Clinton addresses the National Action Network’s 25th Annual Convention in New York City. REUTERS/Mike Segar

No new lead crises in 5 years? Clinton has a plan

By on 13 Apr 2016commentsShare

The day before a Democratic presidential debate in New York, Hillary Clinton rolled out an environmental justice plan that calls for eliminating lead as a major public health threat within five years.

She would have her work cut out for her, as Flint, Mich.’s lead-poisoning crisis has shown. As Clinton reminded her audience today in a speech on racial justice at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network conference: “There are a lot of Flints across our country where children are exposed to polluted air, unhealthy water and chemicals that can increase cancer risk.”

Studies show that some 500,000 U.S. children under the age of 5, who are predominantly black and Latino, have high levels of lead in their bloodstreams. This is primarily because of lead-based paint in old buildings, but also stems from contaminated soil and drinking water. When it comes to water contamination, we don’t even know where most of the problematic pipes are concentrated; best guesses range from 3 to 10 million lead service lines in America. Nor do we have consistent reporting on concentrated areas of lead paint in homes.

Despite the myriad challenges, Clinton insisted Wednesday: “If we put our minds to it, it can be done.”

Her plan calls for:

A Presidential Commission on Childhood Lead Exposure and a task force charged with finding and fixing 50 other Flints around the country.
Directing all federal agencies to develop plans on environmental justice and ensure that the Justice Department prosecutes environmental crimes as heavily as other crimes.
More funding — specifically, up to $5 billion in federal dollars — to replace lead paint in homes and contaminated soils in school yards.
Federal incentives through her Clean Energy Challenge (something Clinton proposed previously) so that states have a reason to exceed federal standards for lead reduction and other types of pollution.
Funds to replenish the Superfund budget to clean up over 450,000 polluted sites around the U.S.
An update the Lead Disclosure Rule and Safe Water Drinking Act to improve lead inspections, and the need for more infrastructure spending to fix water and transportation-related pollution.

A number of these proposals would require Congress to cough up more funding for infrastructure and transportation, as well as for Congress to amend laws. And a few of them overlap with proposals from Bernie Sanders, who has also called for more funds for Superfund sites and would direct agencies to develop clear priorities on environmental justice. Sanders, too, has highlighted the “unequal exposure of people of color to harmful chemicals, pesticides and other toxins in homes, schools, neighborhoods and workplaces” on his campaign website.

Flint has featured heavily in the Democratic primary and was the site of a Clinton-Sanders debate in March. With a week to go before New Yorkers vote, environmental justice is back in the national spotlight. But the intertwined problems of pollution, poverty, and racism won’t be fixed in just a handful of debates.

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No new lead crises in 5 years? Clinton has a plan

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Inside 2016’s Weirdest Republican Delegate Fight

by RachelleWoodhou Posted on April 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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The US Virgin Islands Republican caucus would hardly register on the national radar in a normal year. Traditionally, it hardly even registers on the islands’ radar—fewer than 100 people participated in the 2012 event. But with front-runner Donald Trump struggling to lock up the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination, the behind-the-scenes wrangling for delegates has taken on an unprecedented significance. And that fight has come to this US territory. The chaos there says a lot about what could unfold in Cleveland in July, when the Republicans convene to select their presidential nominee.

This collection of Caribbean islands—which includes St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas—is home to one of the smallest Republican parties in the United States, but it has produced one of the nastiest and most unexpected political clashes in recent memory. The battle has played out in radio attack ads and in the courts, featuring allegations including corruption, carpetbagging, and Nazi sympathizing.

In one corner is the island’s Republican Party chair, John Canegata, a shooting-range owner who works at a rum distillery and has led the GOP there for four years. In the other is a faction led by John Yob, a veteran political consultant from Michigan who worked for Sen. Rand Paul’s presidential campaign before moving to the islands last winter. Yob and his wife, Erica, along with Lindsey Eilon, another political operative recently arrived from Michigan, were among the six delegates elected on March 10; Canegata is fighting to have the entire slate replaced and has signaled he may take the challenge all the way to Cleveland.

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Inside 2016’s Weirdest Republican Delegate Fight

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John Kasich Is Banking on a Contested Convention

by TamelaDennys Posted on March 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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Ohio Gov. John Kasich doesn’t have much hope of racking up enough delegates to be elected the Republican presidential nominee by the party’s convention in Cleveland this summer. So far he’s only secured 25 delegates, per the New York Times, far behind Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, let alone front-runner Donald Trump.

But during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, DC, on Friday afternoon, Kasich remained optimistic that he could become his party’s nominee—by winning a contested convention. “I don’t think anyone’s going to get that,” Kasich said when Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked him about the prospects for any candidate to gain enough delegates to win the nomination on a first-ballot vote. “Could you think of anything cooler than a contested convention?” Kasich said, adding that it would make for a fun civics lesson for viewers at home.

Before he sat down with Hannity, Kasich roamed the CPAC stage solo, speaking to the crowd. He kicked off his speech with remembrances of how, as a young man in 1976, he worked to force a contested convention in order to put Ronald Reagan forward as the Republican nominee over incumbent President Gerald Ford. (Ford won the nomination but lost the presidency.) “The fact is, we got him on the ballot, and I was at the convention with Gov. Reagan, and I had at a very young age found myself in charge of five states for Gov. Reagan,” Kasich said.

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John Kasich Is Banking on a Contested Convention

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John Oliver takes on Donald Trump and it’s everything we hoped it would be

by TashaMathew Posted on February 29, 2016

John Oliver takes on Donald Trump and it’s everything we hoped it would be

By on 29 Feb 2016commentsShare

After months of largely ignoring Donald Trump in the hopes that he would just go away, America’s best Brit John Oliver finally took on the apish rich kid (and future president?) in a brilliant 22-minute tirade on Last Week Tonight.

In addition to the usual criticisms — for instance, Trump is a vulgar, racist, corrupt and failed businessman whose largest vocabulary word is “great” — Oliver looked at Trump’s claim that he is self-funding his campaign, a myth he trots out to prove that he isn’t beholden to corporate interests. But, as Oliver pointed out:

While it is true that he hasn’t taken corporate money, the implication that he has personally spent $20 to 25 million is a bit of a stretch, because what he’s actually done is loaned his own campaign $17.5 million, and has personally given just $250,000. And that’s important because up until the convention, he can pay himself back for the loan with campaign funds.

He didn’t stop there. Trump — who recently blamed his refusal to disavow the Ku Klux Klan on a faulty headset — is also remarkably thin-skinned. In 1988, Oliver pointed out, Trump was called a “short-fingered vulgarian” by writer Graydon Carter, and he’s still pissed about it. To this day, Carter said he occasionally receives photographs in the mail from Trump, usually tear-sheets from magazines, with his hand circled in gold Sharpie and the message, “See? Not so short.”

It’s not the sort of behavior one really looks for in a presidential candidate, but like a Zika-infected mosquito who just won’t go away, Trump continues to beguile the American people — many of whom plan on voting for him, despite his refusal to acknowledge climate change, his endorsement of war crimes, and his utter lack of qualifications. A big part of his popularity is the idea that Trump is a successful businessman. But is he? Not according to Oliver:

Over the years, his name has been on some things that have arguably been very un-good, including Drumpf Shuttle, which no longer exists; Drumpf Vodka, which was discontinued; Drumpf Magazine, which folded; Drumpf World Magazine, which also folded; Drumpf University, over which he’s being sued; and of course, the travel-booking site GoTrump.com, whose brief existence was, I imagine, a real thorn in the side of anyone hoping GotRump.com featured a single thing worth masturbating to.

But Oliver has a plan to take down Donald Trump, and it starts with separating the man from his brand — and his name. According to Gwenda Blair, author of The Drumpfs: Three Generations That Built An Empire, the name Drumpf was originally the slightly less presidential sounding Drumpf. And as Oliver said:

Drumpf is much less magical. It’s the sound produced when a morbidly obese pigeon flies into the window of a foreclosed Old Navy. Drumpf. It’s the sound of a bottle of store-brand root beer falling off the shelf in a gas station minimart.

And while Oliver acknowledged that it might be odd to bring up Trump’s ancestral name, Trump deserves it, for the following tweet about Oliver’s former boss:

Oliver then informed the audience that he has registered the domain DonaldJDrumpf.com, where he will be selling hats (at cost!) reading Make Donald Drumpf Again and offering a web extension that will turn every instance of the word Trump on your internet browser into Drumpf.

“If you are thinking of voting for Donald Trump,” Oliver said, “the charismatic guy promising to make America great again, stop and take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you just met a guy named Donald Drumpf, a litigious serial liar with a string of broken business ventures and the support of a former Klan leader who he can’t decide whether or not to condemn. Would you think he would make a good president, or is the spell now somewhat broken? That is why tonight I am asking America to make Donald Drumpf again.”

It may be too late to make Donald Drumpf again before Super Tuesday, but it’s still a long way to November. You can get your Drumpf hat here.

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Why San Francisco’s "Frisco" Debate Will Never, Ever Die

by LesterCard Posted on January 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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When they’re not arguing about lettuce in burritos or their love-hate relationship with tech, San Franciscans are duking it out over “Frisco”—the 165-year-old nickname for The City that inspires a remarkable amount of vehemence. For many years, “Don’t call it ‘Frisco'” was a kind of shibboleth for SF natives. But a backlash to anti-“Frisco” hegemony has been growing, culminating with today’s Buzzfeed-sponsored Call It Frisco Day. In the interests of teaching the controversy, here’s a timeline that will provide plenty of ammo for partisans on both sides of the “F word” debate.

Late 1840s:

The earliest recorded uses of “Frisco” in writing. Folk etymologist Peter Tamony theorized that this syncope was in widespread use during the Gold Rush, having originated as “an Americanization of ‘El Fresco,’ the name of Mexican gold seekers for the ‘refreshing, cool’ city to which miners sojourned after long, hot months in the Sierra foothills.” (Though he also speculated that it’s related to the Old English term frip-socn, meaning “refuge of peace.”)

1872
Beloved local eccentric/crank Emperor Joshua Norton I bans use of the word “Frisco.” Or not: See below.
The Emperor strikes back

Wikipedia

Emperor Norton supposedly declared “Frisco” off-limits with this 1872 decree: “Whoever after due and proper warning shall be heard to utter the abominable word ‘Frisco,’ which has no linguistic or other warrant, shall be deemed guilty of a High Misdemeanor, and shall pay into the Imperial Treasury as penalty the sum of twenty-five dollars.”
Disappointingly for anti-“Frisco” purists, this decree is likely apocryphal. The earliest citation I could find is in David Warren Ryder’s 1939 biography of Norton, which offers no sourcing.

1877

The Dictionary of Americanisms says that “Frisco” is used “throughout California.”

1882

The “feverish campaign against ‘Frisco'” can be traced back to this year, according to lexicographer Allen Walker Read.

1895

The New York Sun relates a humorous anecdote about a San Franciscan with a complaint:

“Easterners call my city out of its name with malicious purpose, and that none of them have been hanged for it shows that we are forbearing people beyond all others. They call my city”—the speaker choked at the word—”they call it ‘Frisco!’…Ding ’em sir, they seem to think they are doing something pleasant and smart; yet every San Franciscan loathes, with a murderous loathing, to hear his city so called.”

1904

“No, we don’t call it Frisco, that’s tenderfoot talk,” states an old-timer in an article in The Reader.

Digital Sheet Music Collection

1906

“Anyone who goes about the country asserting that his home is in ‘Frisco’ may at once be set down as an imposter,” says The Advance.

1908

“There never was and never will be a ‘Frisco,'” asserts the San Francisco Call: “Neither before the fire nor since has this shabby abbreviation, born of vulgarity and laziness, ever been tolerated in this neighborhood. Of course, the name is applied in a merely heedless spirit; but to the ears of the true San Franciscan it is offensive.”

1912

The federal government decides not to refer to the city by “the flippant ‘Frisco'” anymore: “The term ‘Frisco’ as a name for San Francisco, employed by nonresidents, is objected to by a majority of the citizens of San Francisco and is never used by them. The term has been condemned by the press and civic organizations…” • The Arizona Republican ascribes “Frisco” to telegraph operators and traveling salesmen who condensed “a pretty long name for one who is in a hurry.” (It also claims that Los Angeles is known by the shorthand “Loss.”) • The San Francisco Chronicle editorializes, “There is only one San Francisco in the country, and to call it ‘Frisco’ is not only erroneous, but substitutes a rather ordinary name for a very beautiful one.”

1913

Poet Berton Braley takes to verse to question San Franciscans’ aversion to the term:

Why not call her “Frisco?”
Brethren, what’s the harm?
Good old San Francisco
Will not lose her charm,
Just because you name her
With a nic-name brief;
How can “Frisco” shame her,
Pain or cause her grief?
…
Why not call her “Frisco?”
She’ll be still the same
Gay old San Francisco
Under any name.

1915

Digital Sheet Music Collection

California Outlook reports: “The influx of eastern visitors who have ‘come to see the ‘Frisco exposition’ is causing the native San Franciscan to boil with wrath.” • The same year, a traveler to the city confirms that he was warned “time and again not to refer to it as ”Frisco.'”

1920

“San Francisco is all puffed up with itself,” declares the editor of Reedy’s Mirror. (What’s new?) Also: “Worse than saying ‘Earthquake’ is to call the city ‘Frisco.’ The word invites physical assault.”

1938

A resident observes, “I think we are comfortably informal—although we do insist on the full name San Francisco rather than Frisco.” • An almanac published by the Federal Writers Project offers this advice for tourists:

If you want to be liked in San Francisco,
Remember not to call it “Frisco.”
If you’d rather not arouse our ire,
Remember the earthquake was “the fire.”
If you want to earn our friendliness,
Remember to knock Los Angeles.

1943

Time reports: “Because ‘Frisco’ is a contraction abhorrent to all San Franciscans, roly-poly Mayor Angelo Rossi sped to Hollywood to take issue with 20th Century-Fox, about to release a picture called Hello, Frisco.” Rossi reportedly convinces the movie’s producers to promote it as Hello, San Francisco, Hello within city limits.

1946

“If you want to win friends and influence people there, don’t call it Frisco,” a guide to California advises visitors to the city.

Herb and legend

Legendary San Francisco columnist Herb Caen had an odd relationship with “Frisco.” In 1941, he insisted that “It makes you feel good all over once in a while to say ‘Frisco’ right out loud.” Then in 1953 he wrote a book called Don’t Call it Frisco. He flipped-flopped a lot. In 1993, the three-dot scribe praised “the F word” as “a salty nickname, redolent of the days when we had a bustling waterfront.” Yet in another column that year, Caen observed, “I no longer hear people say either ‘Frisco’ or, in automatic reproof, ‘Don’t call it Frisco.’ An ominous sign…” But then: “Adolescence is believing that ‘Frisco’ is a racy nickname for a city; senility is automatically saying ‘Don’t call it Frisco’; maturity is figuring it doesn’t matter all that much…”

1954

Hells Angels Frisco motorcyle club opens. They seem like nice guys.

1956

Future San Francisco Chronicle scribe Stanton Delaplane explains to delegates coming to the city for the GOP Convention, “You can call Los Angeles ‘L.A.’ You can call chicago ‘Chi.’ But if you call San Francisco ‘Frisco,’ they cut your Republican buttons off and drum you out of town.”

1957

“We wished each other luck,” writes overrated khaki-wearer Jack Kerouac in On the Road, “We would meet in Frisco.”

1967

A headline in Life magazine that mentions “Frisco” draws angry letters. Cynthia Woo demands, “What made you think you could get away with ‘Frisco’…? No San Franciscan uses or likes the name.“

1968

“I left my home in Georgia / Headed for the Frisco Bay,” sings Otis Redding in “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” You can’t argue with Otis Redding.

Digital Sheet Music Collection

1974

Visiting journalists receive an official city press kit titled “Don’t Call It ‘Frisco’.” (The visitors’ bureau still issues this advice.)

1977

Bette Midler plays Bimbo’s: “They told me, ‘Don’t call it Frisco, don’t call it Frisco… It’ll upset the natives.’ Well, FRISCO, FRISCO, FRISCO!” The Los Angeles Times reports that the audience loved it.

1981

A mock trial is held for the F-word. Despite pro-“Frisco” testimony from Peter Tamony, the judge rules against the syncope, arguing that it demeans the city’s namesake, St. Francis. (The same judge later heard a moot case on whether there is any there in Oakland.)

1989

Herb Caen observes San Franciscans backsliding: “Two hallowed precepts of my childhood—that you never call it Frisco and that you always call the 1906 earthquake ‘The Fire’—seem to have become outmoded. It is now accepted that Frisco suffered a quake in Ought Six…”

1995

Caen covers his bases again: “It’s San Francisco…Not Frisco but San Francisco. Caress each Spanish syllable, salute our Italian saint. Don’t say Frisco and don’t say San-Fran-Cis-Co. That’s the way Easterners, like Larry King, pronounce it.” He also notes that reminding people to not call it Frisco is “a conditioned reflex that is wearing out.”

2014

Writing about the proud use of “Frisco” by black San Franciscans, the SF Weekly‘s Joe Eskenazi writes that “the only people driven to complain about ‘Frisco’ appear to be aging Caucasians.”

2015

Nearly 80 percent of respondents to the second semiannual unscientific Blue Angels survey say that it is not okay to say “Frisco.”

2016

A digital media company valued at $1.5 billion encourages San Franciscans to “reclaim ‘Frisco'” to honor “the vital blue collar core of our city” and because it “pisses off tech bros.”

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Why San Francisco’s "Frisco" Debate Will Never, Ever Die

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The Fossil Fuel Industry Is Bankrolling the Paris Climate Talks

by JoanFranz5073065 Posted on December 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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You might not expect fossil fuel companies to pay for a conference designed to shrink their industry. But in Paris, that’s precisely what’s happening.

This week and next, roughly 40,000 diplomats, activists, policy experts, and journalists are gathering in the French capital for a round of high-stakes negotiations aimed at slowing climate change. They’re packed into a regional airport that, as described by our Climate Desk partners at the New Republic, has been converted to resemble a cross between the United Nations headquarters building, Disney World’s Epcot Center, and a natural history museum.

For two weeks, all these people need to be fed, housed, transported, entertained, and equipped with space to work. Unsurprisingly, it’s an expensive undertaking—budgeted by the French government at nearly $200 million, according to EurActiv France. About one-fifth of that tab is being picked up by private corporations.

Big international conferences frequently have corporate sponsors, but given the basic aim of the Paris talks—to dramatically reduce man-made greenhouse gas emissions—some of the event’s sponsors are drawing criticism for their close ties to the fossil fuel industry. In other words, some of the companies paying to keep the lights on and the coffee flowing at the vital climate summit may have a vested interest in limiting the scope of the international agreement.

The event (known as COP21, short for 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) has more than 50 corporate sponsors. They include the likes of Google, 3M, Puma, and IKEA. In exchange for providing the conference organizers an undisclosed sum of money, corporate sponsors get their logo splashed across high-profile surfaces—from billboards to banners to handouts—and priority access to spaces to hold branded events. Corporate participants can also get direct access to top-tier diplomats. At last year’s COP in Peru, for example, a lobbying group representing a handful of fossil fuel companies—including Shell and Chevron—hosted more than a dozen events, including one featuring UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.

According to a new report from the advocacy group Corporate Accountability International, several of the Paris COP’s corporate sponsors have direct ties to the fossil fuel industry, and, the group argues, a conflict of interest when it comes to the purported goals of the summit.

“It’s greenwashing,” CAI spokesperson Jesse Bragg said. “Those corporations are able to say they’re part of the solution just because they write a check.”

In particular, CAI’s report calls out three COP21 sponsors: Engie, a European electric utility company that is the continent’s largest importer of natural gas; EDF, a French electric utility that operates several major coal-fired power plants; and BNP Paribas, a multinational bank with billions of dollars invested in coal mines and coal-fired power plants. All three have massive greenhouse gas footprints, according to the report. CAI also points out that the utility companies have participated in lobbying organizations that promote the use of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, another activist group has taken aim at corporate greenwashing with a slate of billboard ads across Paris mocking energy and transportation companies that purport to be progressive, while continuing to pollute:

Courtesy Brandalism

Beyond greenwashing, Bragg said it’s unlikely that these companies will be able to have a direct impact on the policy outcome of this COP, given how many of the nuts and bolts were worked out by diplomats in advance. But he cautioned that the creeping influence of corporations over the last two decades of climate negotiations has made diplomats overly sensitive to business-friendly solutions.

“We need to make sure these policies are created with the environment as the primary concern,” he said. “With corporations involved, you move further and further from that target.”

Spokespeople for EDF and Engie dismissed Bragg’s assertions. EDF said that its electricity portfolio contains more renewable energy than any other European utility and that it plows hundreds of millions of euros each year into clean energy R&D. Axelle Lima, a spokesperson for Engie, pointed out that the company has recently committed to stop any new investments in coal and has publicly campaigned for a price on carbon emissions.

“We have to think of solutions with governments to replace coal with another kind of energy,” Lima said. “And together we want to find a climate solution.”

Lima said it was “natural” for Engie to be a partner at the COP, given its role in the energy sector that is being reformed. She declined to specify how much money Engie had donated. BNP Paribas did not return a request for comment.

Erik Conway, a science historian who co-authored a recent book on the fossil fuel industry’s climate science subterfuge with Naomi Oreskes, said that corporate infiltration of climate summits is less important than the lobbying that goes on behind the scenes back home.

“Of course corporate sponsorship is a conflict of interest, just as it is a conflict of interest to have fossil fuel producing nations participating in the COP,” he said. But “I don’t think the presence of fossil-fuel producing corporations at COP meetings has had much to do with their failure to achieve meaningful agreements. It’s their economic sway with individual governments that’s the actual problem.”

To that end, Bragg thinks the UN’s climate organization could take a cue from the World Health Organization’s efforts to block tobacco lobbyists from influencing regulation of that industry. The WHO, in its international agreement on tobacco control, adopted specific protocols that require signatory countries to insulate their public health laws from tobacco industry “interference.” The climate agreement currently being hammered out in Paris could include similar language, Bragg suggested.

“The first step is the official recognition, in text, of this conflict of interest,” he said. “Then we figure out how we can mitigate that.”

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The Fossil Fuel Industry Is Bankrolling the Paris Climate Talks

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