Nobel Peace Prize winner to speak in Brighton

Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Henry Pollack will speak at the Crossroads Sierra Club meeting at the Brighton District Library on Wednesday March 17 on the pressing problem of global climate change, and the public is invited to listen and meet one of the world’s leading experts on the temperature of the Earth.

Dr. Pollack shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former vice president fellow member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Al Gore. Pollack has been a professor of geophysics at the University of Michigan for more than 40 years, travels regularly to Antarctica and has conducted scientific research on all seven continents.

The Ann Arbor resident is also the author of “A World Without Ice” and “Uncertain Science . . . Uncertain World.” He now serves as a science adviser to Al Gore’s Climate Project.

Everyone is welcome to the event that begins at 7 p.m. The Brighton District Library is located at 100 Library Drive, 48116.

Snarky videos debunk climate deniers talking points

Climate change skeptics have gotten some ammunition with the recent stolen emails by taking a few sentences out of context gleaned from 13 years of private correspondence.

However, Midland resident Peter Sinclair has been debunking the deniers lies, myths and talking points for a number of years, and most recently he has produced a series of snarky Youtube videos called "Climate Crock of the Week." Sinclair was recently featured in The Michigan Environmental Council’s (MEC) quarterly magazine.

The videos are both educational and entertaining, and they use lots of graphics, snark and sarcasm. He explains climate science in layperson’s terms, and he also uses lots of sources to back up his presentation. He compares deniers to cartoon character Bevis and Butthead. He also debunks the Beck/Limbaugh talking points.

"Like P.T. Barnum said, ‘if you want to draw a crowd, start a fight,’” He told the MEC. ”If it’s going to be on Youtube, it’s got to have an edge.”

His latest work that blows holes in the deniers’ arguments is called “Deniers love the ‘70s.” In it, he debunks the latest denier talking point that science predicted global cooling in the 1970s. Sinclair was one of the people personally trained by former Vice-President Al Gore to present a special slide show of his Academy Award winning movie "Inconvenient Truth.”

The Michigan Environmental Council (MEC) is a coalition of more than 70 organizations created in 1980 to lead Michigan’s environmental movement in achieving positive change through the political process.

Renewable energy rally features labor and environmentalists

Coming on the heels of the news of a planned $1 billion conversion of the idle Ford Wixom plant into a massive renewable energy park resulting in 4,300 direct jobs, the BlueGreen Alliance and Repower America are holding a rally for clean energy jobs at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday Sept. 2 at the United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1299 hall at 11424 West Jefferson in River Rouge.

The rally will be in support of clean energy jobs in America, and more specifically in Michigan. It’s fitting that the BlueGreen Alliance is a coalition of the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Sierra Club and other environmental groups formed in the summer of 2007. The strange bedfellows formed the strategic alliance to pursue a joint public policy agenda that includes stopping global warming, clean energy, fair trade and reducing toxins in the environment.

Repower America was launched in 2008 by former Vice-President Al Gore with an ambitious plan n to "repower" our country with 100 clean electricity and revitalize our national energy infrastructure. Repower America stands for the importance of investing in energy efficiency; clean, renewable and diversified energy sources; a unified national smart energy grid that connects these renewable energy sources to every part of the country; and clean car technology.

Repower America has goals very similar to the BlueGreen Alliance, and they include jumpstarting our economy and create millions of jobs; help end our dependence on foreign oil; reward innovation and job creation, not polluters; and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow the threat of climate change.

Republicans are sore losers

Republicans are sore losers. If you need any proof of that, you just need to look at the examples of former Sen. Norm Coleman and the so-called and misnamed “Tea Party” protest set for next week.

Despite losing the election, every court case and in every recount Sen. Al Franken gets more votes, Coleman refuses to concede after five months. For five months Minnesota has only had one Senator. Remember when Al Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 General Election? He was called a sorer loser from election night until the day the Supreme Court ruled. Just a six-week period, not five months. Why isn’t the pres calling Coleman a sore loser?

According to Media Matters, a Nexis search found nearly 900 "sore loser" press mentions in Gore articles between November and December 2000. So much for the “liberal media” myth.

But the worst example of Republicans as sore losers is the so-called “Tea Party” protest set for this weekend to April 15. My friend Johnny C over at Motor City Liberal calls the event what it really is: an ugly, partisan protest against the President. Previous tea party protests have attracted protesters who called for impeaching Obama while slurring the President’s name as “Obama Bin Lyinm,” according to Think Progress.

He comments on an article on Think Progress that debunks the myth that the partisan protests are simply “displays of regular Americans in protest of government spending and extreme taxation” instead of what they really are, partisan, political anti-Obama rallies organized by extreme rightwing groups like “Freedom Works” and “Americans for Prosperity.”

It is also being organized by some of the most extreme rightwing groups that include militias, secessionists and neo-Nazi white supremacist groups.

The white supremacist group Stormfront is pushing the “tea party” hard. The Michigan Militia is also holding a “tea party.” I thought that fanatical, anti-government group was dead after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The Republic of Texas movement that wants to secede from the union is appearing in North Texas, along with mainstream Republican leaders. I thought that secessionist thing was settled way back in 1865.

The Republicans will be in good company on April 15.

Progressive Book Club finally goes online

It’s here, finally. After months and months and even years of checking the web site to see if it was functioning, the Progressive Book Club is finally up and running and taking orders.

The introductory offer includes three books for just $1 each, and you can choose from some great titles, like the “The Real McCain,” “A Time to Fight,” by Sen. Jim Webb and Al Gore’s “Assault on Reason.” It also offers a place to debate books, discussions, forums and a blog. Perhaps even more importantly, the purchase of a great book will benefit your favorite progressive organization.

The PBC will donate $2 from the purchase of every book over $10 to your favorite organization, from the Animal Defense Fund to the Wellstone Action Fund.
Conservatives have had a place to buy the latest hate-filled trash from the likes of Ann Coulter at the American Compass Book Club and Conservative Book Club for years, and now liberals, progressive and reasonable Americans now have their own book club now.

Check it out.

Minor political parties hope to move up to the big leagues

The race for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees has captured the nation's attention and taught us some new words, such as caucus, delegate counts and super-delegates.

But what about the nomination process for the so-called minor parties such as the Green Party, the Libertarian Party and the Natural Law Party? Each political party sets their own nomination process, and that may include an election, a caucus or a convention. Each state sets the standard for how the party appears on the ballot. Just gaining access to and getting on the ballot is often the biggest hurdle for most third parties, and rarely does the party gain ballot access in every state.

In Michigan, the Republican and Democratic parties are designated major parties, and as such they are the only parties that will appear on the ballot for the Aug. 5 primary election when the two parties will choose their candidates to run in November for local partisan offices and state representative. The standard for a major party to appear on the primary ballot is to have at least 5 percent of the votes received by the winning Secretary of State candidate in the election, which is held in even-numbered years. The hurdle from the Nov. 7, 2006, election was 186,096 votes.

For the minor parties to appear on the ballot for the Nov. 4, 2008, general election, the top-of-the-ticket candidate – whether it’s a presidential candidate or a hopeful for a statewide office such as a university trustee position – must receive at least 1 percent of the vote the successful Secretary of State candidate received in the Nov. 7, 2006, general election. The parties qualified for this November are the Green Party of Michigan, the U.S. Taxpayers Party of Michigan, the Libertarian Party of Michigan and the Natural Law Party. That only applies to Michigan, and even though the Green Party, for example, may have a strong presidential candidate, the candidate may not be on the ballot in a more conservative state.

A coalition of the state minor parties have partnered with the Michigan Third Party Coalition (MTPC) to try to end public funding of primary elections and to push a Voters Bill of Rights to end political discrimination against independent voters.

“We are calling it discrimination,” said Will Tyler White, a member of the Libertarian Party of Michigan executive board. “If you are not a Republican or Democrat, you are discriminated against.”

White said the presidential primary fiasco in Michigan really illustrates their point, especially in light of talk that the Democrats are considering holding a caucus because the national Democratic Party refuses to seat Michigan delegates.

“This is a waste of millions of tax-payer dollars for a private entity,” he said.

Those parties that did not meet the necessary threshold in November 2006 can still qualify to be on the general election ballot with a petition drive. They must first file as a new political party even if they have been around for many years. The party must collect petition signatures equal to 1 percent of the votes cast for the governor. That comes out to 38,013 signatures, and the deadline for turning in petitions is 4 p.m. July 17, 2008.

The U.S. Taxpayers Party of Michigan will choose its candidates at its state convention on May 3 at the Okemos Christian Center. Party Treasurer Joe Sanger said more than 50 people have expressed an interest, and the party hopes to have more than 100 candidates from county commissioner to state representative on the ballot.

“We have a nominating committee, and they will be nominated at the convention,” he said. “We try and get them vetted before the convention.”

The U.S. Taxpayers Party is part of the conservative Constitution Party. The official name of the party was changed from Taxpayers Party to Constitution Party in 1999, but many states still carry the Taxpayer name. The Constitution Party advocates a Bible-based platform, which it claims reflects the original intent of the U.S. Constitution and the principles of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Sanger said some tenets of the platform include eliminating the federal income tax in favor of a tariff. The national party will hold its convention April 23-26 in Kansas City to choose its presidential candidate.

“We expect to have a large delegation from Michigan,” Sanger said.

One of the largest third parties in the country is the Green Party, and it has reached major-party status in some states, meaning its candidates are on the primary ballot. The party attracts many liberals and environmentalists. The party had a big effect on the 2000 presidential election between former Vice President Al Gore and former Texas Gov. George Bush. Many Democrats claim Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader siphoned off Democratic votes for Gore in many states, helping Bush win.

Green presidential candidates took part in four primaries on Super Tuesday, and former Democrat U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney from Georgia won in Arkansas and Illinois. Nader took California. The Green Party will hold its 2008 national convention in Chicago from July 10-13.

A party that has the potential to drain voters from the Republican Party is the Libertarian Party. Republican presidential candidate Texas Congressman Ron Paul was the party’s presidential candidate in 1988, and he garnered 432,179 popular votes. The Michigan group has a message on its Web site inviting Paul supporters to join the Libertarian Party. However, Paul said he plans to concentrate on his presidential campaign as a Republican, but that could always change by convention time in Denver.

“He brought a lot of visibility to the party,” White said. “There are a lot of Libertarians supporting him.”

The Libertarian Party has a strong conservative bent, and its traditional platform includes minimum regulation, strong civil liberties, open borders and non-interventionism in foreign policy that respects freedom of trade and travel to all foreign countries.

The party will hold its national convention to choose its presidential nominee May 22-26 in Denver. The Libertarian Party of Michigan will hold its state convention June 7-8 at the Best Western Gateway Hotel in Romulus.

The Natural Law Party was founded in the United States in 1992 in Fairfield, Iowa, by a group of educators, business leaders and lawyers who practiced Transcendental Meditation. Despite growing ballot access, the Natural Law Party officially disbanded its national organization on April 30, 2004, although a few state parties still remain active. The state party does not have a Web site, and the party chair did not return repeated phone calls.

There are numerous other smaller third parties in the country, but only four in Michigan - the Green Party, the Libertarian Party and the Natural Law Party - have ballot access. Currently, there are no parties seeking ballot status, according to the Michigan Secretary of State. One party not on the ballot in Michigan is the Reform Party of Michigan, and the party stands for a balanced federal budget. However, party officials in Michigan said they do not plan to try to get on the ballot this election.

“It takes a major effort to get on the ballot,” said Matt Johnson, of Ironwood, the vice chair of the party in Michigan. “It generally takes a big name and lot of money to do it.”

Global warming debate at MSU heats up climate change question

Despite the world’s scientific community agreeing that climate change and global warming are occurring, there are still people who claim climate change is not happening. That will be the subject of a debate set for Wednesday, Feb. 6.

Students for a Free Economy will host the debate set for 7 p.m. Feb. 6 in Room 105 of South Kedzie Hall at Michigan State University. The event is free and open to the public.

The featured speakers are Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. and attorney who has represented members of Congress on environmental issues before the U.S. Supreme Court. Horner is a frequent guest on national conservative talk shows speaking about global warming, and he is also the author of the book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism.”

On the other side is Peter Sinclair, creative director of Greenman Studio, a multimedia production company in Midland and presenter for former Vice-President Al Gore's Climate Project. The former Vice-President personally trained some 1,000 presenters in 2006 in Nashville who traveled across the country with copies of his 330-slide climate slide show customized to the state the presentation is held in based on his Academy Award wining film "Inconvenient Truth." The unpaid volunteers set up projectors in living rooms, church sanctuaries and VFW halls to show the presentation.

The event will begin with the two speakers' opening statements, followed by questions from the audience, and then the two speakers will give closing remarks.

Students for a Free Economy is a “nonpartisan educational organization dedicated to promoting the benefits of free markets, civil society and individual liberty” sponsored by the conservative Michigan think tank, The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, also located in Midland.

Al Gore’s new book gets good review by panelists

Enthusiasm is building for former Vice-President Al Gore to enter the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and there was plenty of that enthusiasm at a panel discussion of Gore’s latest book – “Assault on Reason” – on Thursday put together by mid-Michigan draft Al Gore proponents at Schuler Books in Okemos.

The panel, consisting of Beryl Schwartz, editor and publisher of the Lansing City Pulse; Tracy Dobson, a professor at Michigan State University’s Fisheries and Wildlife Department; and Doug Kelley, the retired director of Extension and Continuing Education at the University of Michigan in Flint.

The panel had differing opinions on latest book. Schwartz said he was disappointed the book had no new ideas from Gore, but he said it served as a good reference for all of Gore’s previous positions and good ideas.

“This book, to a large extent represents, both what is good and bad about Al Gore,” he said. “He is brilliant, but as a campaigner he is a little wooden.”

Kelley disagreed with that assessment, and he said Gore’s positions are what the former U.S. Senator and Vice-President are passionate about.

“I found this a very passionate book,” he said. “He says George Bush violated the law – not that that he just lied to people – that he violated the law for the past six years.”

Dobson said there were good and bad things in the book, but she really enjoyed Gore’s take on the history of democracy and communications in the United States.

“TV has done more to damage our democracy than anything else,” she said. “Political debate has been diluted down to 30 second advocacy spots.”

The talk naturally drifted away from the book to politics and other subjects, and the panelists also talked about their personal experiences with Gore. Schwartz said he first met Gore in the early ‘80s when Gore was a Senator and Schwartz was a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C. Schwartz was offered a job as publisher of the Knoxville News Sentential in Gore’s home state, and shortly after that he accepted the job got a call from “Al’ – a former reporter himself - inviting him to lunch.

“We had a lot to talk about,” he said “He has a great sense of humor.”

Schwartz said even then he was developing a respect for Gore, but that respect was cemented when Gore appeared at a journalism panel celebrating the newspaper’s 100th anniversary that Gore had to fly to from a conference in Bermuda and back just to be there because he had made a promise to Schwartz to attend.

“I think there are a lot of people from liberals to conservatives who wish he was president today,” he said. “We would be better off today, but this book will not get him there.”

Kelley, very active in the Washtenaw Democratic Party, said he saw Gore at all six of his Michigan appearances, and he was one of the 1,000 presenters Gore personally trained last year in Nashville to present the slide show based on Gore’s Academy Award winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Kelley said he saw a man that was far from wooden and lacking in emotions, and he saw a man who cared about people and was at ease with people from al walks of life.

Kelley has one of the largest collections of Democratic Presidential campaign memorabilia in a garage-like structure at his Ann Arbor home he calls the “archive” that he welcomes people to visit. Kelley once worked as an aide to late Democratic U. S. Senator Phil Hart, and he compares Gore favorably to Hart. Hart was a former Lieutenant Governor of Michigan, and he served in the Senate from 1959 until his untimely death in office in 1976. The Senator Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. is named for him.

“He (Hart) was as close to a saint as a politician can get,” Kelley said. “Al Gore has some of those same qualities.”

Bob Alexander, a former Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in the 8th Congressional District, is one of the organizers of the mid-Michigan Draft Al Gore movement. The group meets every month at 7 p.m. at the Gone Wired Cafe, 2021 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing.

For more information contract Alexander at Alexjuliea@aol.com.

Rogers decides pollution is bad but there is no such thing as global warming

Apparently Mike Rogers has added scientist to his long and growing list of expertise and subject matter expert.

In a story in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus on the special slide show on Al Gore’s Academy Award winning movie "Inconvenient Truth" making an appearance in Republican-Livingston County on March 10 in Brighton, Rogers said pollution is bad, but the 400 scientists from 113 nations who say humans are causing global warming do not know what they are talking about. If pollution is bad, then how is it bad, Professor Rogers?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just released an authoritative and disturbingly scientific report in Paris a few weeks ago that said global warming is “very likely” caused by mankind and that climate change will continue for centuries even if heat-trapping gases are reduced. It was the strongest language ever used by the panel. The document was a collaboration of hundreds of scientists and government officials, and it was approved by 113 nations, including the United States.

Evidence is mounting every day, and more and more scientists are coming to the conclusion that humans are causing climate change. The words “very likely" means they agree that there is a 90 percent chance that global warming is caused by humans. The report issued in 2001, said global warming was "likely" caused by human activity. What will it take to convince Mike Rogers; the disappearance the Alpine glaciers?

Just a few days after the IPCC report came out, 45 nations answered France's call for a new environmental body to slow inevitable global warming and protect the planet. However, the world's heavyweight polluter, the United States, and booming nations on the same path as the U.S. — China and India - declined. Even though the U.S. agrees humans are causing global warming, they do not want to do anything to address it.

To show you the level of misinformation, lies and the political pressure that is trying to force scientists to alter their findings that global warming is occurring the article offers up one fountain of right wing propaganda: Dan Wholihan, who runs the Republican Michigander blog. Anyone who has ever read this guy’s misinformation knows he would not believe man landed on the moon if a Republican told him it never happened. He says Gore “…has an agenda and he wants to implement his agenda.” Of course he does, and so do the millions of other concerned people all across the world that care about the planet and do not want to see it disappear or be fouled.

Gore personally trained some 1,000 presenters last year in Nashville who are traveling across the country with copies of his 330-slide climate slide show customized to the state the presentation is held in. The unpaid volunteers are setting up projectors in living rooms, church sanctuaries and VFW halls to show the presentation.

Dr. Kathryn Savoie, environmental program director with the Dearborn-based Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), will present the slide show at 2 p.m. March 10 at the Brighton Education Center, 125 S. Church St., located just a couple of blocks south of downtown Brighton and about a quarter mile from the I-96 Spencer Road Exit.

Special presentation of "Inconvenient Truth" coming to Brighton

A special slide show on Al Gore’s movie "Inconvenient Truth" is making an appearance in Republican controlled Livingston County next month in Brighton.

According to the Detroit Free Press, a dozen Michiganders are helping Al Gore carry the message of his movie "Inconvenient Truth," preaching the gospel of global warming with his slides and their words.

Gore personally trained some 1,000 presenters last year in Nashville who are traveling across the country with copies of his 330-slide climate slide show customized to the state the presentation is held in. The unpaid volunteers are setting up projectors in living rooms, church sanctuaries and VFW halls to show the presentation.

The steep rise in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere is trapping more of the sun's energy and heating up the earth. The changes are most dramatic at the poles, where glaciers and sheets of ice are melting. Expected results in Michigan include hotter summers, and the levels of the Great Lakes are expected to fall by at least 5-feet.

The Brighton presentation is set for 2 p.m. March 10 at the Brighton Education Center, 125 S. Church St., located just a couple of blocks south of downtown Brighton and about a quarter mile from the I-96 Spencer Road Exit.

I hope to see a lot of people there. Also, "Inconvenient Truth" is also up for an Academy Award for best documentary this Sunday.