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Richard Lee Dechert

Maplewood, MN
Commenter for
4 years 27 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 05/27/12 at 05:46 pm in response to Agenda 21 and looming battles over urban development

The paranoidal Agenda 21 conspiracy theory concocted by right-wing organizations and supported by fossil-fuel interests is yet another pathological means of denying the reality of human-induced global warming and obstructing urgently needed public and private efforts to mitigate the warming and adapt to its increasing destructive climate changes. As the International Energy Agency has warned in its latest annual report, our climate system has already been locked into decades of global...

Posted on 04/16/12 at 09:17 pm in response to Global warming hurts oysters; the carbon cost of reading on newsprint

"Emissions from pulp and paper mills, like the one shown above, are the fourth largest
industrial source of greenhouse gases in the United States."

"Oceans Acidifying Faster Today Than in Past 300 Million Years"

The rest can be pondered without newsprint at http://www.greenpressinitiative.org/impacts/climateimpacts.htm and...

Posted on 03/27/12 at 12:21 pm in response to Reflections on my reporting about the environment and global warming

I've been deeply concerned about the adverse impacts of human-induced global warming ever since I read the Club of Rome's largely ignored but sadly prophetic "The Limits to Growth" in 1973. And what has happened to our planet since then has been sadly confirmed by peer-reviewed climate scientists and other competent investigators. Having experienced the birth of my first grandchild in August 2011, and having end-stage cancer, I wrote this resolution that was unanimously approved at my...

Posted on 04/01/12 at 08:48 pm in response to Reflections on my reporting about the environment and global warming

The redOrbit report Mr. Rose cites in his MARCH 27, 2012 - 12:21PM "Drought Photo" Comment was published in 2007. Why did he ignore the several subsequent reports on the adverse global warming impacts of severe Amazon drought that are easily accessed by Googling "Amazon forest and drought."? Is he more interested in denying the reality of human-induced global warming than supporting urgent public and private actions to reverse it and adapt to its increasingly adverse environmental, social...

Posted on 03/14/12 at 06:38 am in response to Why I never want to cover politicians

In Greek tragedy "hubris" is characterized as an excess of ambition, pride, etc., ultimately causing the transgressor's ruin. In an American tragedy the "hubris" of politicians who are denying the reality of human-induced global warming and undermining efforts to address it is causing our planet's ruin. Hence my 2012 Precinct Caucus Resolution:

A Resolution for a Livable, Peaceful Planet

*Whereas* human agriculture and the human burning of fossil fuels release large amounts of...

Posted on 03/06/12 at 12:17 pm in response to Congresswoman McCollum, panel to discuss global population

Please document your claim that Rep. McCollum has taken on an issue over which she has no influence, no warrant from her constituents to investigate and no valuable insights." Your "no warrant" claim has already been impeached by me and possibly Mr. Musich, and will likely be impeached by her constituents who attend the St. Marys forums on March 13 or 14. And if as you claim she has "no valuable insights," will she not gain some by participating in those high-level forums?

Posted on 12/23/11 at 04:07 am in response to Probe into climate scientists' stolen emails gets serious

The U.S. ranks first among the world's nations in per-capita generation of the greenhouse gases that are increasingly The U.S. ranks first among the world's nations in per-capita generation of the greenhouse gases that are increasingly warming our planet. Led by the Republican Party and its supporters, the U.S. also ranks first among the world's nations in per-capita denial of human-induced global warming and its increasingly lethal impacts on our life-sustaining ecosphere. Those who have...

Posted on 12/24/11 at 06:58 am in response to Probe into climate scientists' stolen emails gets serious

My apology for the transcription errors in Comment #16. It should read as follows:

The U.S. ranks first among the world's nations in per-capita generation of the greenhouse gases that are increasingly warming our planet. Led by the Republican Party and its supporters, the U.S. also ranks first among the world's nations in per-capita denial of human-induced global warming and its increasingly lethal impacts on our life-sustaining ecosphere. Those who have engaged in that denial and...

Posted on 12/11/11 at 01:31 am in response to What it's like being a scientist in the GOP-led Legislature

I first became concerned about the fate of our planet and its species in 1972 when I read the Club of Rome's prophetic but sadly ignored "The Limits to Growth." Its world-system models projected that unless the human species limited its population growth, resource consumption and environmental pollution, the system would collapse sometime in the 21st century.

And that's precisely what's happening now with world population exceeding seven billion and going to nine billion by 2050;...

Posted on 12/11/11 at 05:49 pm in response to What it's like being a scientist in the GOP-led Legislature

Mr. Rose, I respect and encourage "diversity"--not incompetency, dishonesty and outright psychopathology. That's what denial of scientifically verifed human-induced global warming and its increasingly catastrophic impacts is. And I have "zero tolerance" for that as should every responsible citizen.

I have Stage IV terminal cancer. My first grandchild was born on August 31, and as investigative journalist Mark Hertsgaard says in his remarkable 2011 book "HOT: Living Through the Next...