NYT opinion: Russia's invasion of Ukraine is fueled by fossils

Please check out Farhad Manjoo's opinion in the New York Times:

On one hand, it would seem uncontroversial to point out that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a war enabled and exacerbated by the world’s insatiable appetite for fossil fuels. It couldn’t not be so: Russia is a petrostate...By accelerating our transition to cheap and abundant renewable fuels, we can address two grave threats to the planet at once: the climate-warming, air-polluting menace of hydrocarbons and the dictators who rule their supply.

And yet American politicians on the left sure seem incapable of drawing out this connection, don’t they?

"If the 'climate lobby' were truly so powerful," Manjoo says, "it might have long ago prevented Europe from building its society upon a devilish bargain with Russian energy."

But that is past. Looking forward: Will the Democrats be able to pass Build Back Better legislation — with or without Sen. Joe Manchin?

"We’re in a Fossil Fuel War. Biden Should Say So." Farhad Manjoo. New York Times. March 24, 2022.

Also, Thomas L. Friedman:

This is our umpteenth confrontation with a petro-dictator whose viciousness and recklessness are possible only because of the oil wealth he extracts from the ground. No matter how the war ends in Ukraine, it needs to end with America finally, formally, categorically and irreversibly ending its addiction to oil.

"How to Defeat Putin and Save the Planet." Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times. March 29, 2022.

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CNN explains:

"The September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which pumped methane gas from Russia to Germany, was a major flashpoint in the energy war between Europe and Russia. Amid its invasion of Ukraine, Russia halted all gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 at the time, blaming Western sanctions for causing technical difficulties. Authorities have yet to determine who was behind the sabotage.

At the time of the leak, UN Environment Programme detected on satellite a massive plume of concentrated methane. It later reported the ruptures were likely the largest single release of methane ever recorded."

— "Sweden’s climate pollution should have been down. The Nord Stream pipeline leak sent it skyrocketing," Rachel Ramirez, CNN, December 14, 2023

See also: "In near unanimous vote, European lawmakers call for Russia to be declared a 'terrorist' regime" CNN, October 2022.

Biden's fossil fuel reduction goals during Russia's war on Ukraine

As described in an article today in the Huffington Post, U.S. President Joe Biden

has committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, meaning America’s forests, farm fields and clean-industrial projects would remove more carbon from the atmosphere each year than the country’s cars, power plants and factories emit. To achieve that goal, he passed an infrastructure bill with some renewable energy incentives and pursued a much more ambitious set of renewable energy tax credits as part of the stalled Build Back Better legislation. Using the powers of the executive branch, Biden also revoked authorization for the Keystone XL oil pipeline and raised federal fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks.

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So long as Biden does not reauthorize Keystone XL, which would incentivize fossil-fuel extraction over the long term, the president’s efforts to limit the political fallout from higher gas prices are compatible with Biden’s plans to phase out fossil fuels, according to Andrew Dessler, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University.

On the other hand, Biden has released oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and this week decided to "increase liquefied natural gas exports to Europe to decrease [Europe's] reliance on Russian gas."

Source: "Gas Price Hikes Test The Climate Action Movement", by Daniel Marans and Alexander C. Kaufman, Huffington Post, 18 March 2022.

See also: "War May Change How We Rely on Big Oil". It's a 3-minute read on Medium. Medium lets you read a certain number of stories for free every month. You may also consider a paid membership on the platform.

Image by Tama66 at Pixabay

The Muckrake podcast explains the implications of 'Don't Say Gay'

"'Don't Say Gay' Is Here to Stay"
The Muckrake Political Podcast
March 11, 2022
Nick Hauselman and Jared Yates Sexton

[This is a segment of a larger episode that is available on Patreon for subscribers.]

Image by educadormarcossv on Pixabay

Here's my paraphrase of what's available here:

The governor of Florida is promoting a bill, known as "Don't Say Gay," to exclude and demonize LGBTQ people. He's banning something that is a made-up problem that isn't even affecting kids' lives.

So many ways it is bad:

On an individual level. The goal is to prevent LGBTQ kids or kids from LGBTQ families from talking about themselves and their families; to teach straight, cis kids that LGBTQ kids are weird and wrong; and to penalize teachers from explicitly supporting those kids. Consider, too, political histories of kids being taken away from their families: "This is just a precursor to a lot of really bad stuff."

On the level of demographic shift. Another possibility is that, because Texas and Florida are on the precipice of having majorities of Democratic voters, the right-wing is trying to push progressive individuals out of the state.

On the level of irrationality. Rather than say Christians and queer people need to get along, the right wing is turning to QAnon-esque conspiracy theories to say that queer people are inherently evil.

On the level of education. Another part of the goal is to undermine public education as an institution. Education helps people participate in public life. The current right-wing turn away from public education is a turn toward authoritarianism. People who aren't going to participate in democracy don't need to be educated in history, political science, economics, sociology, or in how anything works at a macro level. The authoritarians, as they stand to benefit from a capitalist system, also want children to be allowed to work.

On the level of a broader system of laws. The more authoritarian laws we have, the less our democracy is viable.

To read more on this topic, please see "What Does Tucker Carlson Say About LGBT People?" It's a 12-minute read on Medium. Or try "How Trump scored himself 36 points on LGBTQ rights — and why that’s a failing grade." It's a 9-minute read on Medium. Medium lets you read a certain number of stories for free every month. You may also consider a paid membership on the platform.

Parrot sings wonderfully

The bird is really good.

Overcoming biases takes time

If your audience already knows your topic well, you can say a few words and activate their existing knowledge base, complete with all their unchallenged assumptions.

But if your audience does not know your topic well, and especially if they have certain assumptions, biases, and prejudices that prevent them from understanding what you are saying, you need to help them deconstruct those existing frameworks before you can begin to make your point.

I can present *something* valuable in 15 minutes, but the fact that I can't explain how to end weight bias in healthcare in 15 minutes doesn't mean I'm not an expert, it means the person asking me to do so isn't.

— Ragen Chastain (@danceswithfat) March 4, 2022

This is part of the reason why education takes time. It isn't just a knowledge transfer of a few key phrases. It's teaching people how to think, which includes a large body of facts plus the ability to reason and emote their way through those facts.

Why are college classes 90 minutes long? Don’t any professors know the material well enough??

— Sean Ringey (@z3an) March 5, 2022

Some people are good at presenting information quickly and clearly. That's one useful skill (among many others) for teachers to have, but it isn't necessarily what makes someone an expert in their subject matter. Students, too, may be experts-in-training. They become experts by spending a long time listening — and realizing that they must never cease to learn. Expertise is an ongoing investment of time.

Image by nugroho dwi hartawan from Pixabay

Cliff Simak: Folklore has fact as a starting point

“Then there was Smith, who had traveled the barren world for years jotting down the windblown stories whispered by the little degenerating things about an ancient greatness and a golden past. Myths, most of them, of course, but some place, somewhere lay the answer to the origin of the myths. Folklore does not leap full-blown from the mind; it starts with a fact and that fact is added to and the two facts are distorted and you have a myth. But at the bottom, back of all of it, is the starting point of fact.”
— Cliff Simak, “Mirage” (1950; first published in Amazing Stories as “Seven Came Back”)

Flower field image by 愚木混株 Cdd20 from Pixabay

The reason for the huge Ukrainian protests in 2014

In 2014, Ukrainians wanted to align themselves with the European Union, not with Russia. To this end, they favored the leader Yulia Tymoshenko over Viktor Yanukovych. People all over the world saw footage of politically motivated violence on the streets of Ukraine's capital city, Kiev.

Why did Ukrainians protest?

Protests erupted in Ukraine in late 2013 because President Viktor Yanukovych, caught between European and Russian trade interests, sided with Russia.

Ukraine had been part of the Soviet Union until its breakup in 1991; today it is its own sovereign nation. The Ukrainian language is encouraged there today, although many people also speak Russian, in part as a result of the former Soviet Union's "Russification" campaigns. Ukrainians have a range of opinions and feelings about their geographic and political position between Europe and Russia.

Yanukovych had been expected to sign the "Eastern Partnership" trade agreement with the European Union, but he suspended talks with the EU on Nov. 21, 2013. Had he continued talking to the EU, he would have faced trade sanctions from Russia, and the EU would have demanded that he free his political opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, from prison.

The Tymoshenko-Yanukovych rivalry

Yulia Tymoshenko had a leading role in a 2004 revolution that quashed election results that favored Yanukovych. Tymoshenko served as prime minister from 2007–2010, then lost the 2010 election to Yanukovych. The next year, she began serving a prison term for abuse of authority stemming from an international business deal. The EU and US considered her a political prisoner.

Protests intensified in February 2014

Yanukovych made a deal with Russian president Vladimir Putin to cut gas prices in Ukraine, then passed an anti-protest law, but this did not satisfy protestors. People occupied Kiev City Hall until February 16, 2014, during which time their demands grew to include restoring the 2004 constitution and limiting the president's powers.

These protests coincided with the Winter Olympics held in Sochi, Russia, which brought worldwide media attention to the region. Kiev is about a thousand kilometers northwest of Sochi.

Days after the protestors left City Hall, there were deadly, fiery clashes in Kiev's Independence Square. Protestors made fire bombs, and police showed up in riot gear. The AP published a photo of a gray-haired person running while covering their face in their hands, as the shoulders of their sweater billowed with orange flame.

Dramatically, as medics took a 21-year-old woman to the hospital for a bullet wound to the neck, she used her phone to post to her Vkontakte social media account: "I am dying." She survived, but over a hundred others did not.

With hopes of stabilizing the situation, Ukraine's embattled president met with foreign ministers from Germany, France and Poland. British Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden also spoke with him by phone. On February 20, Yanukovych signed a peace deal with the opposition protestors.

The next day, however, a different internal political resolution in Ukraine was manifested. Ukraine's parliament voted to oust Yanukovych, reinstate the 2004 constitution and free Yulia Tymoshenko from prison.

Yanukovych fled his residence. Tymoshenko appeared in Independence Square in Kiev on February 22 and told the cheering crowd that Yanukovych was a "terrible dictator." She has a back injury and sat in a wheelchair while speaking. "We've eliminated this cancer, this tumour," she said. Making clear the protestors' preference for working with the EU over working with Russia, she said: "Everyone has a right to take part in building a European, independent state."

Yanukovych was later discovered to have gone into exile in Russia. Parliament said in 2015 that he was no longer president, and a court convicted him in 2019 of treason and sentenced him to prison, though these were formalities since he remained in Russia.

The above is based on an article that I posted to another website on 27 February 2014. That website went offline later that year. I had read "The Day We Pretended to Care About Ukraine," published 20 February 2014 in Politico, in which Sarah Kendzior chastised American web surfers for succumbing to the allure of "disaster porn" without having a good understanding of the political issues. That concern is perpetually valid, so I am reposting my article to my own blog now.

2016 – 2020: The Trump administration

U.S. President Donald Trump was impeached in 2019 for trying to shake down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Trump failed.) I wrote some articles about that, and when you search this blog for the Ukraine tag, you will find them.

2022: Can You Donate to Help Ukrainians?

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the New York Times posted a donation guide for "How You Can Help Ukraine."

They recommend Direct Relief which "has supplied Ukraine with $26 million in medical aid over the past six months" and Save the Children which "has been engaged in Ukraine since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014," as well as Mercy Corps and International Medical Corps.

TGEU (Transgender Europe e.V.) has a list of organizations in Ukraine and in neighboring countries that are helping transgender Ukrainians with emergency needs during this time.

Donations made through CNN Worldwide and Public Good will be distributed among 39 organizations. (Information current as of March 15, 2022.)

Do you use PayPal? They also listed a dozen organizations for Ukraine relief. You may see different organizations depending on the country from which you access this page.

In December 2023, U.S. aid to Ukraine has been delayed, and this may impact other countries' willingness to give aid too. Without this finance, Ukraine is expected to lose the war.
See: "Western officials warn Ukraine is ‘certain to fail’ against Russia if US doesn’t provide more aid," Jim Sciutto, CNN, December 15, 2023

I also wrote

How Putin Played Donald Trump and the USA

War May Change How We Rely on Big Oil: Energy companies' reactions to Russia’s war on Ukraine

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Photo: Yulia Tymoshenko, 2010, in Aachen. © GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version Wikimedia Commons.

Swan Lake, and TV Rain is gone

A few minutes ago, the Washington Post published "Russia’s last independent news station suspends broadcasts". TV Rain, the last remaining independent TV/radio news in Russia, has gone dark. Lateshia Beachum explains: "Russia blocked access to the station and declared it and fellow news station, Radio Echo, as foreign agents for their coverage of the war with Ukraine in which they used the terms “war” and “invasion,” usage of which the Kremlin has banned, the New Yorker reported." The reporters have fled. The story continues: "The last seconds of TV Rain’s broadcast, where one of its journalists walked off reportedly saying “no war,” was of a black-and-white broadcast of Swan Lake. The last time the station aired the performance was in 1991 when the Soviet Union was on the edge of collapsing, according to NBC News."

The last seconds of the Dozhd TV channel's broadcast looked like this. pic.twitter.com/p4t14T2Ghq

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 3, 2022

Image of the swan by Peter H from Pixabay