Bella Gaia

A new and unforgettable video by director and composer, Kenji Williams, compiling views from NASA and other sources of the Bella Gaia, the beautiful Earth.


The video was supported by NASA, the Baum Foundation, the Foundation for Global Community, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and is a production of Remedy Arts, LLC.

Please share this wonderful and unique view of the Earth and its environment.

Doubling Down on Our Faustian Bargain

by James Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Makiko Sato

Faust in his Study by Rembrandt

Humanity is doubling down on its Faustian climate bargain by pumping up fossil fuel particulate and nitrogen pollution. The more the Faustian debt grows, the more unmanageable the eventual consequences will be. Yet there are plans to build more than 1000 coal fired power plants and plans to develop some of the dirtiest oil sources on the planet. These plans should be vigorously resisted. We are already in a deep hole -- it is time to stop digging.

Humanity's Faustian climate bargain is well known. Humans have been pumping both greenhouse gases (mainly CO2) and aerosols (fine particles) into the atmosphere for more than a century. The CO2 accumulates steadily, staying in the climate system for millennia, with a continuously increasing warming effect. Aerosols have a cooling effect (by reducing solar heating of the ground) that depends on the rate that we pump aerosols into the air, because they fall out after about five days.

Aerosol cooling probably reduced global warming by about half over the past century, but the amount is uncertain because global aerosols and their effect on clouds are not measured accurately. Aerosols increased rapidly after World War II as fossil fuel use increased ~5%/year with little pollution control (Fig. 1). Aerosol growth slowed in the 1970s with pollution controls in the U.S. and Europe, but accelerated again after ~2000.

The rapid growth of fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the past decade is mainly from increased coal use (Fig. 1), mostly in China with little control of aerosol emissions. It is thus likely that there has been
an increase in the negative (cooling) climate forcing by aerosolsin the past decade, as suggested by regional aerosols measurements in the Far East, but until proper global aerosol monitoring is initiated, as discussed below, the aerosol portion of the amplified Faustian bargain remains largely unquantified.

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President Obama's Next Four Years

Lost in the election's afterglow for Democrats and deep funk of Republicans is the hard work to be done and how much the president's success -- which, by definition, is the country's success -- depends on how many of us will have the president's back for the next four years.

President Obama referred to this point in his historic election night speech when he said: "So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other."

He then added: "The role of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote. America's never been about what can be done for us.  It's about what can be done by us, together."

This is the message every American needs to consider, to face the truth that, prior to the election -- over the last four years -- citizens, democrats included, didn't always have this president's back. There are reasons. The recession, people trying to survive. Ideology. Misinformation. Disagreement. There was also a strange abdication, the sense by some who voted for him that now he can make change.

It doesn't work that way.

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President Obama's 2012 Victory Speech (Video)

President Obama's rousing victory speech after winning reelection:

President Obama's Final Campaign Speech 2012 (Video)

President Obama's final campaign speech of 2012 at Iowa returns to where it all began in 2008.

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Romney's Empty Binder

Photo: Holger.Ellgaard 2007

During the second debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, the ex-governor of Massachusetts made a comment that has now become an Internet meme:

"I went to a number of women's groups and said, 'Can you help us find folks?' and they brought us whole binders full of women," he said.

As pointed out in Laura Basset and Jason Cherkis's article, Romney 'Binders Full Of Women' Female Hiring Boast Falls Apart, Romney's bizarre comment wasn't even true. A collection of women's groups put together a binder of resumes and brought it to him in an effort to get more women in state government. When he did add to his roster of female employees, he put them in less important positions than those occupied by the men in his staff and, two years in, had less women in positions of authority than his first two years as govenor.

In an exchange during the MSNBC Ohio Undecided Voters Focus Group after the debate, Chris Matthews asked whether four still undecided women on the group were surprised that Romney refused to support equal pay for equal work. The answer from one, affirmed by another, was that "she liked the idea that Romney had women in his cabinet and that he went out to find them."

Undecided women voters leaning toward Romney's binder didn't hear that the resumes of women came from women's groups concerned about Romney's male dominated staff. Romney's "binders full of women" lie, as fun as it is on the campaign trail and as an Internet meme, is an empty binder Romney has used to cut into the president's support among undecided women.

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