A Voice Apart

"UN chief Ban Ki-Moon has sent condolences to the families of victims." Isn't that nice? Ban Ki-Moon is a neo-con patsy and it so shows by his lack of initiative. Let's send in the fiscal and physical aide instead of empty words. Instead of having warriors, why now have peace forces ready to deploy. Oh yeah, I forgot, there is no money in peace and aide giving when needed. The money must be kept for making wars against nations for their resources for we in the global North to acquire. Ban is such a disgrace in the position he nows holds; as is every political follower of the corporate states of the North, including our own lovely Harpie.

The world is changing and we have to make sure that it changes in the direction that will improve the lives of all, globally, and not just those of the already rich.

Great, well thought out note but missing the major point of why this monsoon and other wind-rain-snow events that are part of "historically regular or repeating" weather are of particular note.

This is not just a natural phenomenon reoccurring that the earth has been through before over millions of years ago. The changes that are taking place today are changes that in the history of earth have resulted in extinction due to other causes but today are caused by the unleashing of carbon by humans. When scientists attempt to reproduce these twentieth century trends in their climate models, they are only able to do so when including human-produced heat-trapping emissions in addition to natural causes.

What everyone should remember is one important thing. Global warming/climate change has more to do with extreme weather events, whether cold/hot, dry/wet, etc

I think what we need to recognize is there is a line that is crossed when the history of natural disasters become a permanent shift to extreme conditions. Global warming has altered global winds, the strength and location of high and low pressure systems, and other climate factors.

In a complex model if we were to call the events a result of a historical cycle we would have to have occurrences of periodicity. We are not seeing sameness of a cycle. We are seeing extremes, peaks and valleys of drastic differences from times past. Not regular occurences. This is essentially not a weather event but a climatological trend. There is a huge distinction that is observable and calculated by the scientists as to what the climate changes are and what weather occurrences represent.

Climate models predicted these kinds of events a decade ago. The models are constantly improving and they are causing great alarm. Records are being broken. This is not a question of being out of the ballpark, it is simply a matter of refinement.

For any of the events in singularity there simply is not enough money in the bank to continue to battle the ravages of global warming. We will find the results of dragging our feet now for the benefits of short term profits a grave marker for many in this country or worldwide.

There is no better time than now to begin to open our eyes by recognizing these types of "weather events" for exactly what they are. Climate trends which are bound to affect our futures in a very real and dangerous way.

"civil behavior August 30th, 2008 2:47 pm

Climate refugees.

We have been warned.

Who is paying any heed?"

NOTE that the article says, "The Kosi, which flows into the Ganges, is known as the "River of Sorrow" due to its record of disastrous floods during the monsoon season", and these seasons are not happening due to climate change; being historically regular or repeating. But that doesn't diminsh the value in working to establish or for homeless shelters, which is always a worthy thing to do. And conditions may get worse due to climate change, even if not worse in Bihar and the part of Nepal that's hit now.

Conditions evidently have become worse in some regions or locations of Earth, and global warming is only an average (a very small increase, on average), for the changes vary across the globe. In southeastern Quebec, if not all of Quebec, Canada, we finally had a real winter again over 2007-2008; the last instance being back in the 1990s from what I recall. Iraqis also saw snowfall for the first time in over 80 years, for some elderly citizens were questioned about the snow and they said they had never seen any, while some of these people were as old as 80. I forget which other country was mentioned, perhaps Afghanistan, but people there also saw snows for the first time as far as the present generations can recall. We've had some cold months during winter seasons here since 2000, but the winters were wildly enough unusual; f.e., very cold November, mild Dec. and Jan., and colder in Feb., but deep freeze in Nov. That was very unusual, for my roughly 25 years in Canada since 1976. At or near the end of the 1990s, there was the notorious ice storm that hit southern Quebec and northern parts of New England, certainly Vt, and this was very unusual given that I've seen no other ice storm, definitely nothing worthy of note anyway, over my years here, but also because this additionally happened during the end of Dec. and/or early Jan, which historically were much too cold for ice storms, which fall as ice-cold rain (I think).

Climate is changing, but there's plenty of variation, and govts need to get with good will, help prepare for rescues of massive numbers of people who'll be caught in life-or-death situations due to drastic climate changes. This is something societies should always be prepared to do anyway, regardless of the specific reasons causing this readiness; whether it be climate change that's in question, or needing to help people find safety due to other problems.

It'd be a sad irony if people campaigned for lowering greenhouse gases without preparing to help rescue people affected by climate changes causing the need for rescue or flight and then this situation of rescue being urgently needed not being implementable fast enough. We shouldn't consider such negligence worthy of much respect, while preparing for rescue missions would be absolutely respectable, honourable, right, ... (and needed). Firefighters are prepared to deal with urgent circumstances, but what is being done to prepare to rescue people fleeing from climate change making their lives impossible (what- or which-ever the location)? Little or nothing is what's being done.

How many are we "willing" to sacrifice; are we subtly working for human depopulation with such negligence; ...? I wonder, and have wondered about this before over the past several years; wondering if all of the talk about and calls for action on claimed causes of climate change or global warming is being backed up with preparing for actual, real, immediate rescue. And I think that this isn't happening; only at very small scale, and at best.

U.S. govt and its hidden ruling elites prefer to pillage U.S. taxpayers' dollars and for making war for natural resources, though. If they used that huge amount of funding for [constructive] purposes, then a lot of aid could be provided to all of the third-world poor and desperate, including those of the USA, Canada, ..., for we also and often enough have such poverty (and oppression, abusive exploitation, ...).

Like with the dikes that weren't properly maintained and caused or seriously contributed to the flooding of New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina, we neglect to do what's needed to provide human populations with security measures for natural disasters. It's not profitable to help the poor, idiot "capitalists" rule by; while real capitalists would say, about these idiot ones, "YOU'RE CRAZY and don't even properly understand arithmetic, let alone or much less advanced mathematics!".

I'd develop a computer simulation based on reality, economics and the political variations that are related, but lack an advanced math course or two or ... more. It wouldn't be based on theory or philosophy, but simply or strictly representing reality; after which philosophical, ..., analyses could be applied or attempted, and the only correct one is to side with [humanity], not corporatism, so not corporations. They only provide services and products; they are not The or A People's govt and must never be allowed to run the govt, for corporations can and must not be expected to be neutral in such decision-making; because it's contrary to working to profit the corporation's owners, management and (somewhat) employees, and shareholders.

So we have emergencies, but lack of will and investment or contribution.

However, the flooding in Bihar state and ... whatever part of Nepal is said to be regular with monsoon seasons; albeit without lessening the need to be ready to help.

When the last ice age retreated between 17,000 and 11,000 years ago, atmospheric CO2 went from 190 ppm to 280 ppm. That 90 ppm rise in 60 centuries translates into pumping additional CO2 into the atmosphere at a rate of 1.5 ppm per century.

We are now putting additional CO2 into the atmosphere (primarily from burning fossil fuels and deforestation) at the rate of 2 ppm *per year* or more than 100 times as fast as the last natural greenhouse feedback period.

Blame goes all around.

Governments prevent disasters. Dysfunctional or nonfunctioning shells of governments don't prevent anything. In this case the rains poured down. A dam broke. Then a riverbank broke and stayed broken.

The rains poured down because the U.S., China and possibly Europe dumped gigatons of carbon dioxide into our common atmosphere. We couldn't sign a treaty. Too partisan and crooked all the way around.

The dam broke because there were no inspectors or the inspectors took a payoff, and someone was too cheap. In our country the Johnstown, PA flood killed 2000 people over 100 years ago because a dam was grossly inadequate, the rains came, the dam broke and the poor cried bloody murder on the rich dam owners.

The riverbank broke because everyone pushed the river into a tiny channel. Nobody planned. If this river is like the Mississippi, the river bottom is now silted up until it's higher than the surrounding land. High but thin levees keep it in its banks. In any case, two kilometers of river bank are washed out and few people know how to put the river back in its banks now.

Where was the disaster aid? There isn't any, just like FEMA after Katrina. FEMA was designed first to give the appearance of competence and second to save money. First people have to die, then the legislature fiddles and wastes time, and then finally a trickle of disaster aid arrives.

In the days following Hurricane Gustav, we Americans can see how well our government's disaster plans measure up to a third world country's.

Well now maybe India will take some of those troops out of Kashmir to do relief work in Bihar.

Yeah, population control in action - watch and learn folks, watch and lean!

Climate refugees.

We have been warned.

Who is paying any heed?

I am going to go work at a homeless shelter today for the local refugees who have no place to live.

It will get worse. Why do you think Bush bought all those acres in Paraguay and Blackwater is still in business.

wake up America. Wake up.