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Revealed: The Secret Evidence of Global Warming Bush Tried to Hide
Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world's weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating
Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.
Satellite images of polar ice sheets taken in July 2006 and July 2007 showing the retreating ice during the summer. (Photograph: Public Domain) To see larger image: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-a... The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the
presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last
week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanize Congress
and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
One particularly striking set of images - selected from the 1,000 photographs released - includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.
The photographs demonstrate starkly how global warming is changing the Arctic. More than a million square kilometers of sea ice - a record loss - were missing in the summer of 2007 compared with the previous year.
Nor has this loss shown any sign of recovery. Ice cover for 2008 was almost as bad as for 2007, and this year levels look equally sparse.
"These are one-meter resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic," said Thorsten Markus of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One-metre resolution is the dimension that's been missing."
Disappearing summer sea ice poses considerable dangers, scientists have warned. Ice shelves are used by animals such as polar bears as platforms for hunting seals and other sea creatures. Without them, they could starve. In addition, ice reflects solar radiation. Without that process, the Arctic sea could warm up even more. The phenomenon threatens to set off runaway heating of the planet, say climatologists.
The latest revelations have triggered warnings from scientists that they no longer have the funds to keep a comprehensive track of climate change. Last week the head of the US's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Professor Jane Lubchenco, warned that the gathering of satellite data - crucial to predicting future climate changes - was now at "great risk" because America's aging satellite fleet was not being replaced.
"Our primary focus is maintaining the continuity of climate observations, and those are at great risk right now because we don't have the resources to have satellites at the ready and taking the kinds of information that we need," said Lubchenco, who was appointed by Obama. "We are playing catch-up."
Even before her warning, scientists were saying that America, the world's scientific superpower, was virtually blinding itself to climate change by cutting funds to the environmental satellite programs run by the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. A report by the National Academy of Sciences this year warned that the environmental satellite network was at risk of collapse.
In February, a NASA satellite carrying instruments to produce the first map of the Earth's carbon emissions crashed near Antarctica only three minutes after lift-off.
The satellite would have measured carbon emissions at 100,000 points around the planet every day, providing a wealth of data compared to the 100 or so fixed towers currently in operation in a land-based network.
The NOAA is under additional pressure to provide environmental data because of the re-emergence of the El Niño climate phenomenon, where warming of the tropical Pacific causes heatwaves, droughts and flooding around the world. June's land and sea surface temperatures were the second hottest on record, and scientists are predicting this will be the warmest decade in recorded history. The last major El Niño was in 1998, the hottest year in recorded history.
The Obama administration has already taken steps to tackle America's flagging scientific lead. The president's economic recovery plan allotted $170m (£100m) to help close the gaps in climate modelling. The NOAA is seeking an additional $390m in its 2010 budget to upgrade environmental satellites, and help make data more available to researchers and government officials.
63 Comments so far
Show AllAbsolutely outrages. I say hang the sob like he hung Saddam.
sixkilo July 26th, 2009 10:22 am....The problem is you cannot hang him enough times. Put him in glass prison cell for the remainder of his miserable existence with "Bruce" as his cellmate, waterboard him before every meal, put a microphone in his cell, so everyone hears what he says and does and lace his food with depleted uranium. That'll be good for starters.
By handing him to the Sadrists?
And as publically and expeditiously as possible. But within the law, else the lawless take that as permission to act universally. There are so many it is frightening.
Here is the image, zoomed, from the UK...:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-administration#zoomed-picture
Hopefully, CD won't truncate that link.
We are so f*cked.
I am a Canadian and I and every Canadian that i have talked to are completely staggered and shocked at what America has become! To have allowed the arch criminal cabal of Bush and Cheney to commit the destruction that they did and now to allow them to walk free is a complete travesty of Justice! The whole political culture of America appears totally corrupt and they have descended into a pit of moral depravity and spiritual (and financial) bankruptcy! We can only hope and encourage the Americans to wake up and take back their country and restore Justice and Democracy to their once great nation!!!
Well, based on the kind of comments I read in Toronto Star articles regarding labor, public-sector, Afghanistan and environmental issues, and my brother's reports from up there. Canadians are catching up to the US quite quickly. The spectres of Reagan, Ayn Rand, and Friedman are haunting the land above the 49th big time.
Stephen Harper, the current occupant of the Prime Minister of Canada's office, does seem to channel the Reagan, Rand, Friedman, and other gruesome spirits. Catching up to the US is probably one of his fondest dreams, although he often has to settle for just sucking up instead, which he seems to enjoy.
However, it's unlikely the Canada will ever catch up to the US in the way you mean. Canadians are very different people, not just unarmed Americans with health-care, and a majority of them have seen the country swing farther to the right than they'd like. It's highly doubtful that Harper will be re-elected, and the (Liberal) opposition leader, former Harvard prof Michael Ignatieff, will probably be Canada's next PM within a year, unless he does something to shoot himself in the foot.
Unarmed Americans?! That's a myth. Canada has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world. There are almost as many rifles per capita in Canada as in the United States. They are licensed (like cars) however.
And that is old news.
Global Ocean Surface Temperature Warmest On Record For June
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090725120303.htm
I don't know why we should be surprised by this, as we have had access to non-classified evidence demonstrating the retreat of the ice zone for years.
We also have considerable anecdotal evidence. Nome, Alaska, has not seen mosquitoes in recorded history, until about 15 years ago. Mosquitoes in Nome have now reached plague proportions during late Spring and Summer, a sign that the permafrost is melting.
The Bush Administration killed off most of NASA's planned Earth environmental monitoring missions, including the massive EOS which had been in planning and construction for over 10 years. Why? The Idiot wanted a legacy and so redirected NASA to retool for manned Moon/Mars missions.
Well, George the Idiot got his legacy all right: A planetary wasteland.
Don't worry, within the next say, two years, the weather will have the last laughs, or as some would correct me, the climate. In other words, it will be too late to stop devasting events of weather which,yes, are already happening to the most vulnerable, but I'm talkin' events that will hit everyone equally. Then watch as the naysayers shit in their designer jeans and Guchi suits.
Of the many crimes perpetrated by Dubya, Cheney, & Co., this is perhaps their most evil and narcissistic. Global warming effects everyone, including their rich corporate cronies (even the ones who can't see past the urge to increase profits on a quarterly basis).
The recent high gas prices didn't force them to buy Smart cars, the skyrocketing health care prices hasn't affect their health care decisions, and higher energy prices haven't forced them to move from their mansions. As long as they have the money and can influence policy, they can afford the scarce resources and protect themselves by fortifying their neighborhoods.
What is amazing to me is how viewers of the Fox propaganda type networks continue to be deceived by the millionaires on the networks, e.g, Bill O'Reilly, who try to make it sound like they are looking out for the common Joe. As a result the Joes of the world get poorer and more desperate and the Fox type networks give them bogeymen to blame, rather than tackle the problems.
It seems strange that US gov't classified information that almost everyone could have found.
yeah, very weird............
we've known about this for years now, way before this picture...........
What really gets me is that all our issues that we are dealing with, climate change, finacial., energy etc, are linked. It seems that those trying to restart our economy don't see how strong the connection is. They see a link but do not understand that for the most part we are moving way too slowly with the climate change issue. We need to just STOP. Stop burning fossil fuels, stop coming up with hair brained ideas like building more nuclear plants (ha) and get real about sacrifice. Reducing our energy usage DRASTICALLY IS THE ONLY SOLUTION. Keep hospitals going with electricity and yes, I can see the need for the satellites.
But we all know that this will not happen. We will literally DRIVE, WAR, JET, PRODUCE JUNK, INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE OURSELVES- INTO OBLIVION
The biggest problem is the military thing. There is no way that the U.S is going to give up being a superpower. They would rather build their MIC to the brink of hell rather than give it up and let it go.
It would get to the point of the military getting what ever fossil fuel was around in order to keep the killing machines running. To hell with the citizens. To hell with the hospitals, to hell with the planet. They'll say the threat from the enemy is too great. Thy must have a strong military to combat the enemy. They don't realize they are their own worst enemy.
In the Mountain Astrologer for August -Sept, there is an article by Jessica Murray. It's called
"Rupture and Renaissance-World Altering Trnasits in the Years Ahead."
This article covers the most profound astrological transits in- a vary long time. It is framed by Pluto in Capricorn. If anyone would want to verify the ligitimacy of Astrology's worth, check out the Mountain Astrologer issues of a few years ago up to this point by going on www.mountainastrologer.com. You will see articles that discussed the up coming transit of Pluto in Capricorn (and the transit of Pluto through Sagittarius which relates to the boom and growth-globalized, that came first) and the Cardinal Cross transit of that include this pluto transit along with Saturn and Uranus. When you read the articles pull out the info which had described our current situation, long before it occured. Then as the events unfold, the discussion gets richer with more in depth understanding. Keep reading. Yeah, if you want to do your research before you nay say astrology, then put up your approximate 8 bucks for some back issues and do your reading. Then, like I said, keep reading.
I think you will be amazed. The transformation we are going through will not slow down untill Pluto leaves Capricorn in 2022 -2023. The whole tumultuous experiance has ups and downs. The most interesting thing that anyone could grasp at this point is that on our national birthday, July Fourth, Pluto was in Capricorn. Yes, the U.S natal chart has Pluto in capricorn, in the second house of personal (national) resources and finances. Pluto has trnasited (moved) around the whole circle to come back -Pluto entered Capricorn agian for the first time since then in Jan 2008 and like I said, will be moving along through this sign until 2023. Those last years, pluto will be back at the same degree in Capricorn that it held during our birth as a nation. But first, the current transiting Pluto, will oppose the U.S Sun sign in Cancer (yes we were born in July) in 2015.
In other words this is going to be a long drawn out painful transformation. When we are done we will have been changed as a nation. But more importantly, we will be changed as individuals.
What we need to remember is that every planet,sign and aspect in astrology has a positive and negative use. If and I say IF , WE CHOOSE TO USE THESE ENERGIES IN A CONSCIOUS WAY, TO TAKE HEED AND DO THE WORK REQUIRED, WE CAN COME OUT OF THIS NEXT DECADE OR SO ON THE WINNING SIDE OF SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION.
But if we continue to hold on to old ways, old power structures and an ego driven lifesyle oriented toward greed, what's good for me and my own, and a self destructive need for comfort and luxury, we will LOOSE!!!!!!!!WE PROBABLY WON'T EVEN BE AROUND TO NOTICE.
Sioux Rose
THE INITIATE: Glad to see someone else posting the astrological indications. I guess you missed my elaborate explanation of the cardinal cross as offered on this website? What's fascinating is that next year Jupiter, as if directed by some major agency of cosmic choreography, will speed up its own orbital rhythm to enter Aries within days of Uranus entering that martial sign for its first visit in 84 years (for Jupiter, it's its first visit in 12 years). Aries opposes Libra, and although Saturn will be in retrograde, back to the late degrees of Virgo at the time that Uranus-Jupiter head to Aries, they are still within the mathematical parameters of an opposition, and it leaves Pluto Capricorn right down the middle (that is, 90 degrees away from, i.e. in harsh square to both). The situation is inflamed and the only sign missing from the cosmic cross is Cancer, our nation's sign. That means a lot of the unbalanced energies (the cosmos' depiction of conflict) will be directed at our nation.
It's also worth noting, if only for symbolic purposes, that these 4 signs that light up like heaven's version of a celestial cross, signify the 4 season change points. Thus the indication is one of a MAJOR season change for humanity; and that this stellar event emerges in anticipation of the Mayan count of time showing major perturbations in 2012 is hardly mere coincidence.
Other cardinal nations include: England/U.K, Germany, China, Mexico, and Canada.
Does anyone have the incorporation date for Iran as "created" entity after WW I?
I don't know about the Iran date. I think the redrawn borders had something to do with the Balfour declaration. At any rate, I wanted to ask you about what you thought about the rock which smacked into Jupiter the other day. Also, are you aware that the Vernal equinox date (December 21, 2012) the Mayans came up with for the "reset" is the date when our solar system crosses the galactic ecliptic? There is supposed to be more "traffic" in the ecliptic so we may have more rocks on the way.
The date given as official for the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran is April 1, 1979.
Joanna
The democratically-elected Prime Minster Mohammed Mossedeq of Iran was overthrown and replaced by a monarchy by a CIA led coup in 1953. For the next 26 years Iran was ruled by a monarch or shah. The date given for the birth of the present Islamic Republic of Iran is April 1, 1979. (Sun in 10 Aries 40)
Joanna
It is a waste of time although quite satisfying to sit around and think of juicy acts of retribution. Even if you succeeded in the painful extinction of the last administration and many that still rule today you would still live within a system that is speeding all of us to horrid little unacknowledged deaths.
Financial devastation,pending destruction of mediocre health care systems that many have no access to and climate change leading not to the destruction of the earth but humans that live on it overwhelm our lives.
The biggest crisis is not lack of knowledge of or discussion of the crisis that we face but the total inability to act in the face of that crisis. It's not about who you going to call but what YOU are going to DO about it.
W4D August the 1st for Single Payer health care for all!. Show your power, support W4D!
Nature's answer to overpopulation and related environmental disasters is to breed reactionary conservatives to kill us off.
By Jove, I believe you've got something there, my good fellow.
It underlines the fact that our environmental problems are ridiculously easily solved.
Does dat machine produce stuff dat humans can't breathe?
Yes --- Don't make the god damned machine, dumkoff!
no --- Okay, now make sure when you make it, you don't poison stuff with manufacturing processes.
It's not hard. The terminators among us just like to make it hard.
Are we forgetting about the connections between HAARP, its deliberate weather designs and the smoke screen of Sarah Palin precisely in Alaska?
We should not ignore the work of Dr. Nick Begich and Jeane Manning, Angels Don't Play this HAARP
A few documentaries on the subject:
HAARP hole in heaven
www.video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5584510125747680812&hl=en
Angels Don't Play This HAARP, the 1998 video documentary by Dr. Begich is available, but somewhat blurred, though Begich's brilliant audio message (what we miss in US mass media for the purpose of keeping the masses dumb) and the authenticity of the sources is very clear.
In "Angels Still Don't Play This HAARP"
by Dr. Nick Begich (2006, good quality audio and video)
www.video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8066925138937638623&hl=en
This is no fairy tale.
For those who prefer a thinktank documentation on the subject, please go to:
Global Research, on WEATHER AND WORLD ECONOMY (MANIPULATION)
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=region®ionId=3
"While the dark forces in the greedy are organized and work 24/7, the good people in the US want to enjoy the good life and go on vacations, on a cruise and have fun. Ah! this is what we get."
Satyagraha_Civil Disobedience
Kudos for running this by although, yes, someone could have just stood on the beach at Barrow and said, "Hey, where's the ice?" Let's have more releases, more pictures, more re-mediations.
However, let's be accurate about the political end of it. To state that "President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanize Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change" requires explanation and begs some scrap of evidence.
Aside from signing through a lot of nasty coal mining, Obama is accelerating the wars for carbon resources to accelerate climate change and purchase relief for the wealthy.
I'm probably out of place, but this is the only forum I've found which seems to be dominated by a voice of reason. In fact, I've had to go elsewhere to feel like I'm contributing to progress and not just agreeing with the thrust of the comments.
To cut to the chase, please, some of you, log on to MSN and comment (via newsvine) on any entry having to do with the Cambridge Gates/Crowley matter. It is shocking by its domination by uninformed, lying, wingnuts, and has commenced blocking my efforts to introduce some element of truth. I need say no more than that your voices are needed there.
Sorry. TY for your drop of tolerance.Bob
Bob, Gates certainly IS guilty of breaking and entering, at least according to Stephen Colbert. After all, as Colbert points out: "...He knew when he wouldn't be home..."
When Obama later called Gates a friend, Colbert pounced on that Press Conference clip and cited the president for consorting with burglars. He quickly noted that presidential precedent had already been set... ...and flashed a picture of Nixon.
LOL! Oily Obama and Tricky Dick.
The environment, our ethics and our economic future are in the shitter and the media stirs up a big fight about "uppity" Harvard Scholars and cops with chips on their shoulders. I had a boss once who liked to yell at people until they resigned. It was deliberate. Too many people do it. I don't. But if a guy can't show "disrespect" for authority in his own house, it's over.
Anyway, they're just making noise in the media to avoid talking about issues of consequence like health care program DETAILS.
Before anything else, this makes painfully clear not for the last time, how much of a luxury the Americans allow to take place in their employee fact sheet for presidency of the most dangerous country in the world.
It is one thing to hope, that the candidate one has voted for does not blow up the planet, another thing to outrighteously deny per se any wrongdoing on behalf of the 'commander in chief'. That description alone is for militarists, as only in the oldest hierarchy, followed by the Catholic Church, the single mind of so far only guys has held the position of god on earth.
That's what it basically cuts down to. The Pope is the highest authority in the 'world' on behalf of the 'beliefs' and morals, the US president is God's representative when it comes to Capitalism and Militarism. You only need a commander in chief when You fancy to go to war a lot.
How dangerous this office has become shows the recent 'presidency' of bush. One man, so incompetent and so mentally 'challenged' as bush was allowed to play 'Nero' or 'Hitler' or 'Mussolini'. Bush not only endangered all life on this planet, he is responsible not only for the death tolls in his beloved wars, but equally for the loss of 'property' and life globally, that could have been prevented with a government that works for its people and not against them or on their expenses.
Abolish the office of the presidency, or make it a representational one like in so many other democracies. When will there be criminal charges against bush? Does it matter how long ago I killed another human being if my name is John Doe?
The presidency gives mentally ill people the opportunity to blow up the whole thing. Hoping that the next president will be a better one than the ones before is dangerous gambling.
Believe That You Can Change Your Beliefs.
Let's FOCUS Folks,
Retribution, single-payer health, more-better education...
...none of these will matter a whit if we cannot achieve a BREAKTHROUGH in the carbon emissions department...
The only BREAKTHROUGH possible, will be one that allows us to start producing electricity cheaply so we can IMMEDIATELY START PHASING OUT PLANT THAT BURN COAL, while increasing the supply of enough electricity to start powering an electricity-based transportation system, thereby phasing out oil as well.
The BREAKTHROUGH is described at http://vortexengine.ca
"Plan B" is to support the development and deployment of this technology that produces electricity based on free, renewable and carbon free energy. Your support is needed for Plan B!
Well, more-better education might help. But it would need to very quick. Perhaps some kind of sleep learning. The MKULTRA gang could possibly give us some assistance.
The above post is a perfect example of what we're up against--instead of focussing on the "real" problem, people are getting sidetracked into frivolity.
FOCUS ON THE SOLUTION TO THE MAIN PROBLEM--which is PLAN B--little else matters for your CHILDREN and GRANDCHILDREN. Why is the situation we're in so difficult for people to understand...? Has any POLITICIAN suggested that you drive your car less...and support a gas tax to encourage less driving? Has any POLITICIAN suggested you buy a "smaller" TV...or NOT use your A/C during the summer?
WHAT IS NEEDED WILL NEVER HAPPEN THROUGH "POLITICS"
SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT OF THE "AVE" http://vortexengine.ca
Sorry for the "frivolity", but if you think you're going to succeed with your singular "SOLUTION TO THE MAIN PROBLEM" in the absence of public education by some means, you're dreaming in technicolor.
WOW! How is it that all these psychotic nut jobs have all the answers? I would end it by doing this or I would put GWB in prison? Isn't July when ice melts in the northern hemisphere, any way? How would any one stop or change this? The fact of change in weather is nothing new, its going to change, ask the plant fossils under the ice in Antarctica. What cracks me up is how funding for more studies will repair any thing? No one needs to tell me the ice is melting when the Earth is pointing the north pole at the sun in its rotation around it, I knew that in 3rd grade. What concerns me more is that people think that this melting ice is some thing new, dah its happened before. I live in Michigan, just a few 100k years ago ice carved out the great lakes. So tell me when this melting stared?
Ignorance is bliss.
And apparently a consistent trait of NeoCons. Ignorance. Tell me this, when your house is on fire are you uninterested in how many rooms are on fire? Do you not care about the outcome or how many of your family are in there? Do you not want to find a way to put it out? Do you not want the arsonist arrested?
Right now, our home, the Earth... is on fire. The last time an interglacial period hit, there were not six billion souls on the planet. Big Oil talking points about natural cycles are psychotic.
But this all boils down to an attitude that you don't want to know; you don't want to study it. It seems to me that NeoCons seem to have no critical thinking skills at all. Only an obsession on personal greed. Tragic to live that way.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Global Warming History:
900 – 1350 AD … so warm, Greenland was inhabited all year-round. They farmed and fished there for about 6 generations.
1350 – 1500 AD … temps dropped to what we call “normal”. Greenland had to be abandoned for year-round living.
1500 – 1850 AD … so cold on our planet, that New York harbour froze in winter as did the Thames River in England. The population of Iceland and Norway dropped by 50%.
1850 – now … mostly “normal” except for these last 20 years or so. Planet heating up again.
It would be a good thing to cut the production of carbon into our atmosphere, but it’s a stretch to say that we are the cause of Global warming.
The sun operates within certain parameters … obviously.
We have been a lot hotter than we are now. Who says the weather/temps we are accustomed to are “normal”?
I'm not certain why you are encouraged by this. The physical mechanism whereby manmade greenhouse gases warm the planet is well understood. That would be IN ADDITION to whatever natural effects are also in place. Your point that previous temperature cycles could not have been manmade is small comfort. We know that our outputs OUGHT to have warmed the planet. For all they are disparaged, our best estimates of 'how much' this effect should have warmed it resides in several climatological models which ALL show the effect. So, the fact that earth itself is unpredictable should be of small comfort. You're saying it could WELL work in concert with our own emissions to take us to a far more dangerous place than even the climatological models predict. Great...
now - 2525
Monsanto scientists genetically modify humans to breathe Carbon Monoxide dissolved in water through our gill slits on our tropical water planet.
itsjustkarma what on earth does your post have anything to do with "The Secret Evidence of Global Warming Bush Tried to Hide?"
Didn't you ever learn in school how to stay on topic?
Bush and his whole administration along with dozens of Republican Senaotrs and Reps. are in complete denial and of course they put all of their constiuients AND us in danger because of this.
Dominic I agree emphatically. I would add that when we ballyhoo our nation as being 'of, by, and for the people, we are coconspirators with these short-sighted, self-interested, "representatives" unless and until we repudiate them completely and impose the severest appropriate sanctions. Unfortunately, our legal system (I'm a lawyer, so I can myself me sanctioned were I to more fully and accurately characterize it)considers these offenses against humanity to be mere 'political questions' addressable only at the polls. That in turn forces us to compete financially in the election process with these scurrilous rapists of nature. Somehow we need to find a solution, before the failure of history precludes resolution. I don't have much time left myself, but the children! Corporations do not face death like the rest of us. Nor are we able to punish them effectively. Certainly we could dehumanize them somehow and overrule laws declaring them 'persons' for starters.
Who are You? I forgot that there is somebody who might tell me who I am, what I am and what I have do. Thanks a lot. Next time You make unqualified remarks about my posts, You better make sure You read them often enough to get to the core.
My comment had nothing to do with the climate change. I don't need to know any new revelations about it. I know.
The content of my comment was directed at BUSH and the possibility of one man (presi-dent) wrecking an entire planet through his imbecile policies. Furthermore my comment points out to abolish the presidency altogether. That is the context of my post.
The college I attended for some time tought us not so much about staying topic, but more about using one's brain before speaking and writing.
Bear thank you so much for the history of global warming all of which took place as our earth was being formed and uyes it did happen over a loong period of and NONE it was produced by man. So how does that have anything do with what we, as humans are doing by polluting the oceans and waterways, they certainly didn't do that a zillion years go oh and how pullantants in the air like our oil companies produce and or using fossil fuels, surely that wasn't in the design a zillion years ago either. SO what is so wrong with takeing precautions and doing eveything we can to try and STOP whatever is going on with our climate warming? DO you plan to leave it to chance that this is ONLY a natural phenomenon? Well for me in answer to my last quetion in a word is NO! I want my great grandchildren and grandchildren to have a place to live right here on this planet without thinking of moving to Mars!!
Despite attempts to encourage colonization, including with the name "Greenland", it wasn't quite an oasis. It was mostly tough living even during the "medieval warm period" (which research suggests wasn't a globally synchronous event). Similar story for the "little ice age". The AVERAGE temperature of the Northern hemisphere (for which there's more reliable data) is thought to have been less than 1 degree C lower than the 20th century. The Thames freezing is another example of a misleading anecdote:
http://tinyurl.com/2j3gnw
Bottom line: There is a range of variability, but globally it seems that nothing in 2,000+ years been exceeded by the recent trend. A trend that's hardly finished (despite what we hear from those cherry-picking short base periods from the surface record). Thermal inertia alone means the atmosphere will keep warming for decades even if we quit fossil fuels tomorrow. But if we DON'T reduce fossil CO2 emissions to below Earth's natural absorption capacity, then things are likely to accelerate.
THAT'S a big part of the issue: The rate of change, and it's impacts on holocene ecology and a burgeoning civilization. Including hundreds of millions of people living near coastlines, relying on perennial watersheds, and basing their livelihoods on reliable agriculture and ecological resources. Past instances of TRUE global climate upheaval, like glacial period thaws and prehistoric greenhouse roasts (which tended to unfold over millennia, not centuries) seem much less relevant to today's world.
We can spend 10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan but can't allocate 390 million to upgrade environmental satellites.
I guess we deserve to fry.
Sadly, this deception is minor by comparison with other abuse by the past administration, We had never before experienced such manipulative wars against science, family planning, and the list goes on.
Unfortunately the same special intrests that proped up Bush and derailed President Carter for his foresighted efforts to curtail environmental degradation and dangerous dependence on foreign oil, are still active and their successes will continue until the populace understands their motives and the consequences.
MANDATE FOR REVERSING WAR ON ENVIRONMENT
The unprecedented war on science and distortions of scientific data by the Bush administration to impede vital environmental reforms underscore the dangerous control that special interests had exercised over them – and still have. Their success in rendering the recent House Climate Bill only partially effective underscores this fact Evidence linking carbon pollution to warming has long been as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by many dedicated scientists environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists.
Special interests argue that the current warming trends follow historic warming cycles, and hence reflect natural weather patterns--but they omit obvious differences: The earlier warming trends developed at slower rates which permitted the ecosystems to adapt. Morever they resulted from temporary natural events, which allowed transitions back to normal temperature patterns--by contrast, the current warming patterns result from artificial causes that will only intensify unless mitigated.
By all indicators, global warming will self perpetuate as the melting ice sheets absorb rather than reflect heat, as the melting permafrost releases more CO2 & methane- and at rates faster than initially thought.. Inundation of low lying areas, spread of tropical diseases to temperate latitudes, sea life destruction from changing ocean chemistry, & currents, are only some potential consequences.
Often overlooked is the fact that, the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were no issue. Conservation, family planning alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.
Contrary to right wing assertions, measures to reduce greenhouse gases could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our non cooperation in international mitigation efforts, while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution. With our participation in international efforts, China & India could no longer use our non-compliance as an excuse for their non-participation.
The environmental and social damage from our indifference to carbon pollution can only worsen if this administration allows the same influence and manipulation from special interests as the previous one had.