Another Christie Climate Denial Remark Prompts Newspeak Diversion from DEP
Spinning Out of Control
Christie’ Slogan Based Facade Crumbling
History, Open Space, Climate – All Part of Orwellian PR Facade
Bear with me as I put today’s outrageous quote by Gov. Christie on climate change and Sandy in context.
That context – and the real science and policy implications – are being missed by the political focus on “gotcha” climate change denial aspects of the Gov.’s remarks (e.g. for a typical example, see: Chris Christie Joins the Yahoos, Says No ‘Proof’ Climate Change Caused Sandy).
Although there is a 3+ year history, let’s start small and from events just last week.
In a move that surely wins a chutzpah award, the DEP press office issued a release and DEP held a big event to celebrate the opening of Petty’s Run historical and archaeological site in Trenton, see:
PETTY’S RUN ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE AT CAPITOL COMPLEX NOW OPEN TO PUBLIC
HISTORIC SITE PROVIDES A PEEK INTO THE STATE’S INDUSTRIAL PAST(13/P53) TRENTON – The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Department of Treasury and Mercer County today unveiled the Petty’s Run interpretive archaeological site located between the State House and the Old Barracks Museum in Trenton.
One little thing DEP forgot to mention in all those celebrations: both Governor Christie and DEP Commissioner Martin tried to bury the site – bury it, as in cover with dirt.(see: Christie Buries Trenton’s History – Kills 1730′s Petty’s Run Restoration
That big balls DEP move was followed by this even bigger one, in a blazing headline directly from the Front Office:
Governor Christie Announces $300 Million Buyout Plan To Give Homeowners The Option To Sell Sandy-Damaged (sic)
Ooops, they looks like they forgot to mention what the Asbury Park Press editors called a “major caveat” and “poison pill” (their words, not mine) – a May 17, 2013 APP editorial concluded:
Hooray for the governor!
Except … there’s one catch. A big one. Actually, it’s not just a catch, but more like a poison pill that could cause the entire program to fail.
Christie says the state doesn’t want to “waste” its money on individual homes. Officials want to make sure they’re able to take control of clusters of homes or complete neighborhoods to allow for an entire area to be demolished and left open for future flood mitigation.
That means nearly every homeowner in a particular area will have to be willing to sell and leave, or there may be no buyouts at all. Then those who were flooded out will be left high and dry.
The chances of such sweeping acceptance aren’t great, especially depending upon the size of the clusters the state has in mind. Christie’s answer to that is for residents to convince reluctant neighbors over a few bottles of wine.
Revealing the Gov.’s stunning cynicism and hypocrisy, at a time when the Gov. is taking credit for spending federal taxpayers’ money on buying vulnerable land (with no plan or policy to guide those expenditures), here at home in NJ, the Star Ledger editors correctly criticized the Gov.’s broken promises on open space funding:
Christie has broken his promise on open space
And after nearly four years of dawdling by the Christie administration — as open space purchases shrink each year — environmentalists are eager to set up a stable source of funding. …
Gov. Chris Christie, meanwhile, is sticking to his own approach: Ignore the issue entirely. When he first ran for governor, he promised to keep the ball rolling on open space. But now, he is breaking that promise. He has still not found a stable funding source for open space, as he once pledged to do.
On his watch, New Jersey continues to preserve less and less green space and farmland every year. And our state money for open space is rapidly diminishing. In the next fiscal year, New Jersey will spend $100 million to preserve open space and farmland, according to a report on NJ Spotlight. That’s at least $50 million less than it traditionally does. The following fiscal year, the total will be only $40 million, at most.
Federal buyout money we receive in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy can help prevent flooding, but that’s just one use for open space. What about the need to protect our water supply? It’s much more expensive to treat drinking water than it is to just protect it from pollution with open space.
Today’s WNYC story brings another whopper from DEP.
Today, the DEP issued a press release, using – of all people! – Princeton scientists, to announce prizes for a “stewardship” initiative.
That press release (link forthcoming) -link here and the entire initiative- was timed to not only divert from the Gov.’s embarrassing climate denial comments quoted in today’s WNYC story, but designed to provide cover for DEP’s lack of enforcement of environmental laws in lieu of reliance on voluntary corporate measures.
[The DEP initiative hiding behind the Princeton award has nothing to do with science or the application of science, it is about deregulation and voluntary compliance, a longstanding enforcement policy controversy that the used Princeton scientists I’m fairly confident know nothing about. There is a certain degree of cynical depravity is shit like this – bordering on evil. Reminds me of what I thought was a moral low when the chemical industry used nuns to attack the Clean Water Enforcement Act.]
Gov. Christie’s outrageously revealing dismissal of climate change, was the denial of the need to use Government powers and resources to prepare and plan for climate change.
As reported by WNYC: (listen to the audio, it has more info than the news story)
Christie: No Proof Climate Change Caused Sandy
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie today rejected the idea that state agencies like New Jersey Transit needed to prepare for climate change ahead of Sandy.
“‘Cause I don’t think there’s been any proof thus far that Sandy was caused by climate change,” he said. …
“Well, first of all, I don’t agree with the premise of your question because I don’t think there’s been any proof thus far that Sandy was caused by climate change,” Christie said, as residents and officials from Lavallette clapped. “But I would absolutely expect that that’s exactly what WNYC would say, because you know liberal public radio always has an agenda. And so since I disagree with the premise of your question I don’t feel like I have to answer the rest of it.”
The real significance here is not the Gov.’s “denial” of climate change that other national media and political outlets have written about.
Gov. Christie dismissed a straw man – no one claims that climate change “caused” Sandy. It made it worse.
The Gov. said: “Since I disagree with the premise of your question, I don’t feel like I have to answer the rest of it” and went on to attack WNYC. What kind of BS is that?
The Gov.’s attack on investigative journalism with a spine (see: Asking a climate change question at a Christie press conference) is a similar tactic he takes to virtually all critics (see the recent NJ Spotlight episode for a recent example of the bully demagogue in action).
The far more important and troubling point in the Gov.’s comments is that he denied any need to plan or prepare for climate change!
That confirms exactly what I have written, see:
- The Deafness Before the Storm
- Leadership matters – How DEP Buried Reports on Coastal Storm Risks
- Why Is It So Hard For NJ Media to Call Out Gov. Christie on Climate Change?
WNYC investigative journalism exposed exactly what that meant for NJ Transit’s $100 million failure (see: prior WNYC reports:
That turned out to be a losing gamble, and one, critics say, that reflects a pattern in Christie’s term in office. In his first year, Christie closed the Office of Climate Change and Energy which had been created and given top-level priority under Jon Corzine.
It was run by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Its mission was to ready the state to handle more severe storms, heat and rising sea levels.
“So none of this work is getting done,” said Bill Wolfe, a 30-year-veteran of DEP and now a harsh critic.
“And if you want to get something done, the DEP has all the tools to get something done and they’ve chosen not to use those tools for political reasons, reflecting the Governor’s priorities and Governor’s policy,” Wolfe said. “And they just don’t want to own up to that.”
But, as I’ve written, the NJ Transit’s $100 million failure is the tip of a large iceberg of failure by the Christie Administration.
This failure explains the AshBritt scandal and far, far more things – and they all revolve around the Gov.’s ideologically based denial of a strong role for government and the need to plan and prepare for climate change, extreme weather, and NJ’s many vulnerabilities.
That’s why the WNYC story is so important – the Gov. has gone on record and his own words confirm exactly what I’ve been saying for years here.
The slogans have lost their power – the emperor has no clothes! Reporters are starting to ask tough questions.
And so the DEP spin machine goes into overdrive!
JUST WANTED TO ALERT YOU THAT ON THE WEBSITE OF THE NJ DIV FISH & WILDLIFE KILLIGN AGENCY THERE JUST APPEARED A 110 PAGE DOCUMENT CALLED THE WELDON BROOK STEWARDSHIP PLAN, WHICH MEANS ALOT OF LOGGING OF TREES TO CREATE GRASSLAND. I HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THIS. BUT ITS UP TO YOU FOR YOUR OPINION.