we'll all be dead in 30 years anyway, along with the oceans and forests.

Excuse me, aren't you talking about Global Warming?

What happen to the term "Global Warming"? I distinctly remember that the phenomenon was being called Global Warming in the not too distant past.

If it's suddenly starts begin called "Climate Change" instead of "Global Warming" then one might come to the mistaken conclusion that the climate changing is in itself a crisis.

I can only personally testify to my 50 years of experiencing Earth weather, but as long as I can remember, the climate has always changed. I'm pretty sure this has always happened. In fact, I've been consulting some very technical books recently, full of charts and graphs that give me the distinct impression that the climate has been changing for some time now. Oddly enough, I can't seem to find a place in those charts where the climate remained constant.

So, please, somebody clue me in here. Is "climate change" a crisis or is "global warming" a crisis?

pdf:

Good question. I think you're trying to be witty, but I can't tell (damn text only communication). The issue is anthropogenic influence on the greenhouse effect primarily, which impacts the earth as a whole by warming it. That's the first term. The effects that humans will actually observe will not look like warming, as things like air and water currents (which redistribute heat) change as well. Thus, people see changes to their climate.

Personally, I think both terms are cumbersome, and since we're playing semantics games, I would like to propose the term "F*@#ing With the Weather." Several advantages here: the phrase implies a subject doing the f*@#ing, which would be us; the term "weather" relates it to something that people understand is actually changing and can observe directly; and the acronym (FwthThWth) rolls off the tongue much like the sound of a cow fart, which happens to be one of the major contributors to the problem.

--

That said, I'm not sure exactly how useful this statistic would be. Statistics have existed for decades about how many people worldwide die from hunger, malnutrition, preventable diseases, etc., and as yet no government or court or corporation has really cared one iota. How would this be different?

Let's not beat around the (burning) bush.

What the Earth and all creatures, human and non-human, are living/dying through is
Climate Collapse.

Climates have always changed, but never (as far as I know) through the deliberate and systematic agency of one species.

We know what we are doing - and how - but are collectively unwilling to stop. Instead we up-the-ante and accelerate the destruction.

Utter madness.

Is there any news about the massive trash float out in the Pacific Ocean? Has a clean-up been proposed? Anyone know?

Coroners all around the world are going to be puzzling over this new idea, that is death from climate change.

So if, on a hot day, while driving, a bead of salty sweat rolled into my eye and distracted me and I crashed and I was killed would the death be directly attributable to global warming?

Humans have an amazing capacity to make that which is simple, impossible!

www.dangerouscreation.com

Earth is a living ecosystem. Three factors are converging to kill it. The first is what you, paddy, call "climate collapse." That's a really good term that encompasses both global warming and the ecosystem implosion that results from it. The second is industrial and military pollution, that is poisoning life forms on this planet. A study was done in 2005 of the blood from umbilical cords of newborns in the U.S. A total of 287 chemicals were detected in this blood. 217 of these are toxic to the brain and nervous system. 208 cause birth defects in animal tests. The third deadly factor in this equation is the threat of overpopulation, the number of humans exceeding the world's carrying capacity.(See the article on Common Dreams today on food shortages.)

coal, while dirty, is more efficient that using gasoline.
Now if we used coal through solid-oxide fuel cells we double the efficiency. That right...same amount of electricity for half the coal.

Time for brains to be used and not a bunch of idiots protesting electricity.

old goat - "Is there any news about the massive trash float out in the Pacific Ocean? Has a clean-up been proposed?"

I heard that it is acting as a "reef", providing surfaces near the ocean surface where CO2 ingestesting micro-organisms thrive. All this extra biological activity is serving as the root in the food chain for vastly expanded fisheries, keeping everyone fed for centuries to come. Further, all that plastic forms an insulative layer which prevents the deep sea methane deposits from belching out into the atmosphere due to any ongoing temperature rise.

And you want to clean it up? Do you want them to stop making chemtrails, too?

"The effects that humans will actually observe will not look like warming, as things like air and water currents (which redistribute heat) change as well. Thus, people see changes to their climate."

Sure looks like warming to me. The weather here in mid Atlantic US has been getting dramatically warmer, at an accelerating rate, over the past 20 years. Daily high temperature records are broken regularly, while setting new daily low temperature have become unheard of. The worst wind chills we experience are warmer than actual thermometer temperatures used to get.

As someone with a geology, the idea of such change over smal portions of human life spans would have been unbelievable back in the 1970's.

And please don't tell me we should just sit back and enjoy the plesant weather. What force are you invoking that will make the the rate of warming stop? At the current rate, much of the earth will be uninhabitable in a few more generations.

Of course global warmng is causing climate change, that is self evident. The subject is far too complex and lenghty to adequaelty post a brief comment, but for the sake of brevity, I will offer one of many examples.

Because of global warming, which is an indisputable fact from any, except denyers, such as ~Lizard~ and a few others who post here frequently, the ice packs and glaciers in Greenland and the Arctic are melting at an alarming rate. Because of the huge amount of icy water now entering the North Atlantic, the warm water Gulf Stream has altered its course, due to that, countries in Europe are experiencng much colder winters and shorter springs and falls. This will seriously effect crops growth and harvests, etc.

Because some areas on Earth are now experencing unusually cold winters, the denyers point to that and "loudly and frequently" exclaim, that global warming is a myth. Unfortunantly, they are dead wrong. Now, I am not a geologist, I don't have a PHD, am not a doctor, or a scientist or a climologist. I'm a retired person who has the time to read these enviromental articles and offer opinions.

I do however read a lot of ohter books and I have read many of the reports written by scientists and doctors, geologists, etc, who have spent their entire adult lives studying our atmosphere, our oceans and the enviroment. I choose to believe those who don't have some political agenda, or who are paid by mega corporations, such as Exxon, to submit faulty reports. I often quote the most credible ones when blogging here at Common Dreams.

If any doubt the global warming issue, or are unsure because of conflicting reports and opinions, I strongly urge them to ___ Google, arctic methane gas ___ and read those articles. Be sure to scroll down to the article titled,__ "Arctic Methane Gas, A Ticking Time Bomb".__ It is written by a highly respected geologist and gives us just about all we need to know on the subject in a article which can be read and understood in about five minutes time.

In essence, that timely and well written article informs us, that if we don't stop burning fossil fuels, we are all gonna die, our children and theirs also. It may happen in as few as ten years, or perhps as long as 100. It is gonna happen, unless we initiate a massive world wide effort to change the ways we create electrical power and then convert to electrical powered vehicles.

There are acceptable alternatives, use of solar, wind, geo-thermal, tidal and wind generated energy, which will harm no one and be perfectely able to produce all of the electrical power needed by the world's populations with no worries about pollution of the enviroment.

With wave generated power, which I personally prefer, several areas in tidal bays with a total of 44 square miles, would be adequate to supply all of the electrical power on our east coast, from Limestone Maine, to Key West Florida. It would not interfere with the ocean's wildlife and there would be zero pollution and zero cost of fuel.

The correct term must be climate change since a growing number of scientist are now starting to worry about a lack of sunspot activity and global COOLING!! As for CO2, if you examine the charts carefully you can see that CO2 actually LAGS temperature change, it does not cause temperature change... something that Al Gore will not even discuss. And all that consensus among IPCC members.. well, many are not scientist at all, and many of the real scientist actually resigned from the comittee because of what the report was going to say... the jury is still out on this one people... lets stop wasting our time with CO2 and start cleaning up the oceans...

Stop worrying about Global Warming, Climate Change or whatever you want to call it. Peak Oil is going to kill off a majority of the human race long before Global Warming has even gotten fully cranked up.

I remember a story of the Carter administration years:

President Jimmy Carter's anti-inflation czar, economist Alfred Kahn, was admonished for his use of that taboo word, "recession." Kahn announced that, henceforth, he would use the word "banana" to describe two or more consecutive quarters of economic shrinkage.

So, in the interest of moving the discussion about what we should do now that global weather patterns are radically changing, glaciers are disappearing, low-lying areas are flooding, and natural systems are quickly becoming extinct, we should jettison the terms "global warming" and "climate change" and just call what's happening a banana.

Maybe then, when we can all agree that what's going on is a banana, we can address this seriously and earnestly.

~GEO 522~ ___ you don't know what you are talking about, or if you do, you are intentionally misleading people for some reason with your comments. You are attempting the same such nonsense ~LIZARD~ did on Saturday's thread on this subject.

There are no "credible" scientists worrying about global cooling. the Co2 in our atmosphere is 50 times normal and that abnormalty began 200 years ago when the industrial age began and it has accelerated ever since that time. The excess Co2 in our atmosphere, does not allow heat to escape out of the atmosphere, hense the "Greenhouse Effect". ___ Which is global warmng, which causes climate change.

It Does not take a doctorate in any science to witness the effects of that, the ice in Glacier National Park for just one example is practically gone. Because of decreases in snowfall, Lake Mead will be almost dry in ten years. Snow caps on mountain ranges all around the globe are disappearing and thus major rivers will dry up. The Arctic tundra is thawing out and the 'billions of tons' of methance gas will thus escape into the atmosphere and accelerate the disasterous problem. And that may occur within ten years and when it does the party is over for humanity and most other life on this planet.

Knock off the bull Geo 522, and if any wish to believe ~GEO 522~, __ I would urge you to take five minutes and ( Google arctic methane gas ) then scroll down to the article titled,___ "Arctic Methane Gas, a ticking Time Bomb".___ The author is highly qualiied to refute Geo's comments.

I find you global warming denyers to be disgusting, ___ it is precicely people such as YOU who have prevented any sensible action being taken to correct our most serious porblem, by causing controversary. If you are not a Neo-Con Troll, you write like one.

Billy, could you please straighten up the clowns that are here?

I seem to remember something called "acid rain". Anybody else? Where did it go? Why isn't acid rain ever introduced into the global warming equation?

You are perfectly correct about cleaning up our oceans ~GEO~.

KEM PATRICK - I appreciate your posts very much but your explanations regarding the effects of „climate change" in Europe are not quite correct so allow me to point out a few things that might help to understand the scope of the problem:

Todays ecosystems were formed about 20 million years ago, when huge masses of ice started to melt and continents were shaped as we know them today. During this transition period which lasted about 5000 yrs, global temperatures rose by 5 degrees Celsius. This gives us some idea of the extent of "normal" or "natural" climate change: a change of 1 degree in a thousand years; We don`t have to be climate experts to realize that with the advent of the industrial age this process has been greatly accelerated with alarming results:

What used to be a very slow process (and thus enabled ecosystems to adapt over time) is now happening in less than a hundred years: Scientists estimate that before the end of this century global temperatures will rise between 2,5 and 6,5 degrees. To us, this may sound not so bad but for finely tuned ecosystems it would be a catastrophe. To understand the scope of the problem we should not dwell on temperatures but look at the ecological consequences, not from the ivory tower of scientific research but from our own experience:

Here in Austria, where I live (altitude 800 m), the winter usually lasts for 6 month (Nov - May) and brings plenty of snow. For the last two yrs this has changed dramatically: With the exception of 5 days in November and 3 days in December we had no snow at all but only some sleet and even more unusual, in January we had great variations in temperature over short periods of time: at the beginning of the week -5 Centigrade, at the end +7 Centigrade, then very strong winds, temperatures rising to more than +10 Centigrade, etc. In February, after some days of frost, temperatures rose so high that bees and flies appeared (two months early) and plants began to sprout. In Germany temperatures rose to 20 Centigrade, a record high since measurements began.

But while we may enjoy sitting in the sun and sipping café latte, this warm weather creates many problems: insect populations increase dramatically and insect species normally found in Northern Africa or Southern Europe start to appear here where they are foreign bodies and can wreck havoc with the natural order and damage agriculture. Biodiversity is very sensitive to the smallest environmental change, and sadly, we have succeeded to make life very hard for many species or even drive them to extinction by destroying or polluting their natural habitat. A dramatic rise in floods, storms, and droughts (depending on the geographical position) has happened all over the world, creating misery for thousands of people, and as usual, the poorest are hit very hard. And this is only the beginning.....

What I find really galling is the fact, that people like Michael Crichton get paid (by the likes of Exxon Mobile) to trivialize or even DENY A PROBLEM OF UNPRECEDENTED MAGNITUDE and politicians hold news conferences and form committes dealing with "climate change" (I call it collective suicide in slow-motion)while in reality they still worship at the altar of endless "economic growth" (at all costs...) Big Business is spending zillions for PR-campaigns in order to convince us that this is a conspiracy of "eco-terrorists" and the left, so they can continue to exploit the last intact places of this planet. Others cling to the belief that the problems of science and technology (in the service of business) can be solved by even more "high tech" applications, but genetic engineering and nuclear fission create more problems than they solve and are incompatbile with the natural production cycle..... The Stern report shows that these technocrats no longer see themselves as part of nature, their only interest is "the economic cost" of climate change, which according to Stern, adds up to something like 7000 billion Dollars....

What our leaders have totally ignored are the MANY PRICELESS AND VITAL SERVICES intact ecosystems ("Nature") provide: Filtering (cleaning) of air and water; stabilization of temperatures, preservation of soil fertility and biodiversity - for more information google for: Restoring nature´s capital
Indigenous people all over the world have realized long ago that nature is the mother of all things, e.g. the indios in Latin America call her "la pacha mama", Mother Earth. Then came the capitalists from Europe and called it "terra nullis", wasteland and sadly, this school of thought is still fuelling the environmental destruction economists call "economic growth". The idea, that there is little or no intrinsic value in natural ecosystems like rain forests, riverside woodland, hedges,mangroves, coral reefs, etc. it totally wrong but still we speak of "developing" such areas when in fact we mean destroying them for short term profit.

Yesterday I watched a shocking documentary about the destruction of the rainforest in Indonesia. To produce ever growing quantities of cheap palm oil, used in industrial food like margarine, cookies, convenience food, etc. now to feed the latest hunger for "Biofuels") huge forest areas are devastated by slashing and burning. The most visible victims are the local tribes who lived in harmony with the rainforest and are now starving and facing extinction or ending up in urban slums. The other victims, close relatives so to speak, are the orang-utans, the great apes of Borneo and Sumatra. Thousands of them have already died and the small rest of baby orang-utans, taken care of by animal activists from the Netherlands, are so traumatized that returning them to the wild seems hopeless, even more so since the "wild" is disappearing so fast, there is hardly any room left for a sanctuary. What really drove me mad was the fact that we, read: the European Union is subsidizing this madness in the name of advancing the cause of "renewable energy" and municipal utility companies are advertising the use of palm oil (to produce electricity) as "100% Nature´s electricity" (!) Meanwhile Indonesian politicians (heavily influenced by right-wing capitalists) defend this massive destruction of highly efficient and irreplacable ecosystems like this: "We can no longer afford to let these forests exist in such an unproductive state....." Talk about 100% ignorance of ecological facts or in other words:
How stupid can you get?

Hi~ MINITRU~, I got my info on the climate change in Europe from an hour long program on the science channel last week.

If I read another ignorant coal apologist on this website, I'm just going to scream!

What is it about the black death, COAL ~ that you people find acceptable? It's like having 10 constant 3 Mile Island episodes going on 24/7 and you people DON'T CARE!

Read about coal, learn about it's current known dangers, and tell me again just how much you hate the idea nuclear power, OK?

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

http://www.cep.unt.edu/ISEE/index.htm

~~~~~~

Some quotable quotes, for your enjoyment, from a bunch of smart folks:

"I suspect that eradicating smallpox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems."

—John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

"Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs."

—John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

"Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets…Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along."

—David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

"We, in the green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which killing a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels."

—Carl Amery

"If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. … This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."

—Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

~~~~~~~

Yep, these are the folks I want in charge of my future!

NOT!

We finally HAD a stable climate - variations within certain limits - but our CO2 [etc] emissions, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, has ended this stable period. As was pointed out, this is the first time any species has had such an effect, and therefore it is "artificial", and not part of natural climate variations.

People die from such sudden changes, some allready have, many more will. Species extinctions will skyrocket.

Humans tinkering with nature's largest and most essential mechanisms, like the atmosphere, is extremely stupid. How ironic is it that "the smartest people in the room" are behind the denials that have stalled remedial action on climate change/global warming?

Note - global dimming has masked the true effect of our CO2 emissions, and so even more drastic changes in climate await us in the NEAR future.

Greetings

I once did a poster campaign called Replacements Needed and would be interested in doing a similar campaign for this issue if anyone could assist me with compiling a reliable body count number I would be glad to undertake the poster layout, design, distribution and promotion of such a project. If anyone is interested in assisting with such a project feel free to contact me at flyingdragonmonkey@hotmail.com

Thanks allot and remember we are ALL in this together.
TH