Figgins wisdom

No monkeyshines
No lollygagging
No sassback

The day just got shorter

Literally. The day just got shorter because of the earthquake in Chile. Luckily it wasn't by an appreciable amount, because I can't spare it. But this is fascinating nonetheless:

The massive earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday may have shifted the Earth's axis and created shorter days, scientists at NASA say.

The change is negligible, but permanent: Each day should be 1.26 microseconds shorter, according to preliminary calculations. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

A large quake shifts massive amounts of rock and alters the distribution of mass on the planet.

When that distribution changes, it changes the rate at which the planet rotates. And the rotation rate determines the length of a day.

What he said

Krugman gets it right, as usual.

After Massachusetts, Democrats were looking for leadership; they didn’t get it. Ten days later, nobody is sure what Obama intends to do, and his aides are giving conflicting readings. It’s as if Obama checked out.

Look, Obama is a terrific speaker and a very smart guy. He really showed up the Republicans in the now-famous give-and-take. But we knew that. What’s now in question isn’t his ability to talk, it’s his ability to lead.

If you haven't seen the videos of President Obama taking the Repug leadership to task at their own retreat, they're well worth it: here and here.

Copenhagen's bike-friendly streets

I was in Copenhagen for most of December, and was amazed at how many folks ride their bikes there, even in the snow and sub-zero weather.



This video (via StreetFilms.org) shows a lot of the amazing technological innovations the city has implemented to make cycling safer and easier. It also has a few shots of the so-called "cargo bikes" — front-loader bikes that people in Copenhagen use to transport everything from their groceries to their kids. I found them to be very funny.

The numbers speak for themselves: 37% of daily commutes are done by bike in Copenhagen; while 55% of all trips in Copenhagen are made by bike.

This is exactly why I'm a member of the San Francisco Bike Coalition — if they can do it in Denmark, we can sure as hell do it here! Of course, in Denmark the most they do to lock up their bike is a little bolt that goes between the spokes of their rear wheel. That's what tripped me out the most — in San Francisco your bike would be gone in 5 minutes if you don't secure it to something. But I still think that with the right city planning, we can get to Copenhagen levels of bike riding.

Drowned rats

World leaders are scurrying to the Copenhagen airport like rats fleeing a sinking ship. You’d think they were all in the Maldives right now or something, and they could see the water closing in over their heads (if you’ll permit me to mix a couple metaphors).

I hope there are two main takeaways from this fiasco:

1. We coordinated, we organized, we messaged, we demonstrated, we protested. It ultimately fell short, but we came together in unprecedented numbers and forged a global coalition. That’s a victory in and of itself. Let’s redouble our efforts. Only the most massive global public outcry the world has ever seen is going to push our bought-and-paid for politicians to take real action.

2. Like Naomi Klein just told the folks at the Fresh Air Center, it’s time to “take the kid gloves off with Obama.” As an American who gave not just my vote but my time and money to Candidate Obama, I feel betrayed by President Obama. He has sold us down the river on too many important issues, but none more important than global warming since all the others will be irrelevant in the face of runaway climate change.

Two years of planning, two weeks of negotiations, and all we got was a worse than half-assed deal cobbled together in the last two hours. You could say I’m feeling kinda down. Down, but not out. Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown – these people were never going to save us anyway. We will save ourselves.

This post originally appeared on Greenpeace International's Climate Rescue Weblog.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Being a Head of State at the Copenhagen Climate Talks

The head of the web communications team at GPI writes an awesome blog that he describes as "a glimpse behind the scenes at Greenpeace and a repository for lessons learned and experiments in online activism and social media."

He wrote a completely amazing post about how a simple, declarative statement such as "All countries agree to phase out nuclear power" can become something so convoluted and mangled throughout the negotiating process that it means very little and achieves virtually nothing. Something like this: "[All countries agree to {consider adopting plans to} {develop multi-stakeholder approaches, with the aim to {take measures to} {have instruments in place to} phase out {inter alia, where possible} nuclear power.]"

Go read the whole post, it's an instant classic and it will tell you pretty much all you need to know about how these types of negotiations work.

Oh yeah, by the way

I'm in Copenhagen covering the UN climate summit for Greenpeace. It's been totally exhausting but thoroughly exhilerating. I would love to be updating this blog, especially with pics and videos, but there simply isn't time. We're talking 16, 18 hour days here. So just follow my Greenpeace USA blog, and the Greenpeace International climate blog (technically I'm working for GPI right now), to get the full scoop.

I will post a couple videos here though, cuz they're from yesterday's 100k strong march on the convention center to demand climate justice. I was super proud and inspired by the Greenpeace contingent. We came STRONG. Here's a couple videos, one of the GP contingent of the march in general and one of my favorite float, this puppet master float we had.

Htown elects openly gay mayor

Becoming the largest city in the US to do so! Who'da thought Houston would be breaking barriers for LGBT people. But, there it is.

Joe Vs. Joe

I'm currently in Oslo covering the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for Greenpeace International, but I felt compelled to take a break from my busy blogging schedule to blog about this.

I do not like Joe Lieberman. I think he's emblematic of everything wrong with our political system in America. I think he's an arrogant, self-serving, bought-and-paid for corporate shill, and nothing more. He is one of the chief obstacles to passing health care reform in the Senate, and he's threatening to stage a one-man filibuster to protect his corporate allies in the insurance industry. Yet in 1995 he actually drafted legislation to stop just such abuses of the filibuster. The man is just as hypocritical as he is narcissistic, it would seem.


Go here to send Lierberman a message asking him to grow a conscience and actually represent the people who elected him rather than the rich corporations who are buying him off.

"Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here."

Just read Michael Moore's open letter to Obama re: the war in Afghanistan. Powerful message, right on the money as always, from Michael Moore:

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.

...

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion if you become the "war president." Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empires think that more evil will force the heathens to toe the line -- and yet it never works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you drunk Bush's Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout "tea bag!"

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?