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A Billion People Will Lose Their Homes Due to Climate Change, says Report
British scientists will warn Cancún summit that entire nations could be flooded
Devastating changes to sea levels, rainfall, water supplies, weather systems and crop yields are increasingly likely before the end of the century, scientists will warn tomorrow.
Venice is already in danger of sinking beneath the waves and the peril will increase as sea levels rise. (Photograph: Franco Debernardi/Getty Images) A special report, to be released at the start of climate negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, will reveal that up to a billion people face losing their homes in the next 90 years because of failures to agree curbs on carbon emissions.
Up to three billion people could lose access to clean water supplies because global temperatures cannot now be stopped from rising by 4C.
"The main message is that the closer we get to a four-degree rise, the harder it will be to deal with the consequences," said Dr Mark New, a climate expert at Oxford University, who organised a recent conference entitled "Four Degrees and Beyond" on behalf of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Tomorrow the papers from the meeting will be published to coincide with the start of the Cancún climate talks.
A key feature of these papers is that they assume that even if global carbon emission curbs were to be agreed in the future, these would be insufficient to limit global temperature rises to 2C this century – the maximum temperature rise agreed by politicians as acceptable. "To have a realistic chance of doing that, the world would have to get carbon emissions to peak within 15 years and then follow this up with a massive decarbonisation of society," said Dr Chris Huntingford, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxfordshire.
Few experts believe this is a remotely practical proposition, particularly in the wake of the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks last December – a point stressed by Bob Watson, former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and now chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. As he put it: "Two degrees is now a wishful dream."
Researchers such as Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office, calculate that a 4C rise could occur in less than 50 years, with melting of ice sheets and rising sea levels.
According to François Gemenne, of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris, this could lead to the creation of "ghost states" whose governments-in-exile would rule over scattered citizens and land lost to rising seas.
Small island states such as Tuvalu and the Maldives are already threatened by inundation. "What would happen if a state was to physically disappear but people want to keep their nationalities?" he asked. "It could continue as a virtual state even though it is a rock under the ocean."
Peter Stott of the Met Office said the most severe effect of all these changes is likely to involve changes to the planet's ability to soak up carbon dioxide. At present, around 50% of man-made carbon emissions are absorbed by the sea and by plants on land.
"However, the amount of carbon dioxide that can be absorbed decreases as temperatures rise. We will reach a tipping point from which temperatures will go up even faster. The world will then start to look very different."
80 Comments so far
Show All......"Few experts believe this is a remotely practical proposition..." Famous last words.
You are one of them. All you have was built on raping the planet. You should be stripped off it, and your iphone and computer should go to some poor child in Bangladesh, your car to Zimbabwe, your house dismantled and shipped to Somalia, until your carbon footprint is reduced to 2... meaning... you have nothing left at all. :-)
The world you envision will be dotted with concentration camps for the "naysayers".
Do you not find it strikingly odd that some of the very wealthiest of people back the AGW dogma, and yet neither intend to part with their wealth (but rather intend to massively add to it), nor intend to give up their private jets, mansions and big cars?
Al Gore does not live a 2 ton Carbon Footprint, which is claimed to be necessary for sustainability. In fact, Al Gore uses up 20 times as much energy in electricity alone, than what I use. Or oil-billionaire Maurice Strong, the author of the carbon-villain-myth. Or David de Rothschild, professional "Eco-Adventurer". Or Ted Turner, Bill Gates, George Soros and others, who are invested in the SUCCESS of the "climate talks".
None of these men intend to make any personal sacrifices to "save the planet". That'll be solely up to you to attempt, while their coffers swell from the fruits of your gullability. However, I cannot blame you. There are so many lies spread in the media nowadays... The Internet did not start an Information Revolution, but a Disinformation Revolution. Enjoy your Sunday.
Are you a paid neo-con shill or are you a volunteer tool?
http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/keydocs.html
I am neither. I don't buy your crap, because it stinks of mass manipulation.
You are a liar
A different opinon makes someone a paid neo-con shill?
More manipulation. None of us will be alive in 90 years. The victims of the future, even if this scenario were true and not exaggeration, are yet unborn.
glad to see the amoral sociopathic couch potato commenting team out in force on this article.
.
you are a nasty specimen
Reminds me of the story of Cassandra.
Dear MistyDawn:
That's true and it all stated when Apollo, the SUN GOD, was rejected by her. Governments have rejected the sun's power too, ( and they do seem so godlike to themselves) but sadly the people, the scientists and the planet will be the Cassaandras, who said "We told you so." Sometimes being right can be so wrong.
"Venice is already in danger of sinking beneath the waves and the peril will increase as sea levels rise."
While it was necessary to build this city after the invasion by Attila the Hun, it is unreasonable to expect that a city built on water and marsh land will 'forever' stand. Perhaps in more modern times people should have opted to not continue building the same way. There is no cure for idiocy. And by the way, Venice has been sinking several inches a century for the last millenium. It's not news.
I have always wanted beach front property, and it looks as though at an elevation of 300 feet, near the Pacific coast,my dream has a chance.
Continuing to claim that only you few have the answer, that all others are fool's and buffoons, that if we don't do X, right now, the world will cease to exiast in X years is not helping one little bit.
It only convinces others of a foolish pretense at "knowing" when there is no possibility that anyone " knows" the future.
This kind of attitude is what has put the GW and enviornmental community in the corner on a stool wearing a dunce hat as far as the majority are concerned.
Want to make progress? Put your arrogance in a bag and bury it in the back yard.
Those "arrogant" folks in the GW community happen to be right. They can't tell us exactly what tipping point(s) will start the observeable beginning of the end and when, but the physiscs, chemistry and math of GW has been known for decades.
All others are not fools and buffoons. You have to include the selfish and their whores, and the many of us who voted for action on GW and have been disappointed, and disillusioned that something can be done.
Actually, the beginning of the end is being observed by NASA, NOAA, their counterparts abroad, and university researchers every day. The trends are all very, very bad and accelerating.
No, they do not happen to be right. In fact, there isn't anything they have been really right about. It's scare mongering that isn't backed up by data. The oceans are not rising any more than they have for tens of thousands of years. The ice is not disappearing, it is redistributing from the north to the south. Oceans rising (in the sense propagated by the AGW crowd) is complete hogwash. If we were to believe the stories about the Arctic, Greenland, the glaciers, coastal cities would already be drowning from the rising ocean. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even NOAA still pegs the annual ocean rise at between 2.5-3mm per year (~1/10th of an inch), which is the same rate it has been rising for about 60,000 years.
You do not need to alert us of your arrival.
.
Actually, your behavior fits exactly the definition of a troll.
Jonathan Edwards
There is no doubt at all that the climate is changing. Surely you cannot disagree with that.
And there is no doubt that exaggeration has been used by Gore and others to make their case seem more urgent. And perhaps their timeline is compacted. Other than that, can you really refute the growth of greenhouse gases? That carbon use is growing?
Would you really contend that there is no effect on our climate by our industries and actions?
mightymite, I absolutely do not deny that the climate is changing. Why would I do that? The climate has always changed. For billions of years, as far as we know.
It's not that Gore et al are exaggerating to make their case seem more urgent. [Aside from the fact that exaggeration = lying]. The problem is that they are in a conflict of interest position, because they have positioned themselves to profit. The preaching of AGW has turned Al Gore from 2 million in assets to over 100 million in assets in just 10 years. The second problem is, that the preachers of AGW-agenda do not live their dogma. If what they preach is true, they should be leading the world by example, and not be amassing wealth and turning from billionaires to multi-billionaires. The third problem is, that the AGW-agenda is driven by very unsavoury characters who, in the last few years especially, have greatly robbed taxpayers throughout the developed world. I am, of course, in particular singling out Goldmann Sachs, which is currently robbing Americans blind.
The growth of atmospheric carbon stands in no relationship to the use of carbon-based fuels. Likewise, the planet is not warming in relationship to carbon emissions. Thirdly, instead of worrying about CO2 emissions and atmospheric CO2 ppm, why not worry about the permanent disappearance of the carbon sinks instead? The less forest the globe has, the less emissions will it take to drive the ppm up.
As to your last question, industry is a symptom of population growth. It is the cause of nothing. I have yet to see anyone who preaches AGW to willingly live a stone-age life. If the AGW-dogma were true, THAT is exactly what it would take for 7 billion people to "save the planet". The worst 'action' we can take as far as our environment is concerned is not taking an exotic vacation by airplane, but to have a second or more child.
I do not expect people to be honest about this, but I will present these questions anyway: How many of you own a car? How many of you own more than one? How many of you own a cell phone? How many the latest tech gizmo? How many of you buy birthday presents? How many buy Christmas presents? How many of you take vacations away from home, by plane or car? How many of you wear clothes based on oil? How many of you have a house bigger than you'd really need?
People do not live what they preach and expect from others.
Jonathan Edwards
Well.... I find rwo areas of agreement.
"I am, of course, in particular singling out Goldmann Sachs, which is currently robbing Americans blind."
Absolutely. And yes, there is profiteering using "Green"
"The worst 'action' we can take as far as our environment is concerned is not taking an exotic vacation by airplane, but to have a second or more child."
Overpopulation is of course a prime mover of pollution. But as most of the worlds poor still live an agrarian lifestyle or have no labor/support other than children thats hard to stop.
While you are correct about Gore and others there are many, many others that believe and try to reduce their impact. They drive a smaller car, walk when they can, live in a smaller or at least more energy efficient house, etc.
So perhaps we shouldn't condemn everyone with the same brush or for that matter condemn their science. Frankly I have no faith in their claims of absolute certainty, but neither do I buy the absolute certainty that they are wrong. A fault I find endemic in the AGW community.
Personally Ubrew and some others convinced me of the science of AGW. There is enough evidence to indicate there is AGW. Absolute conclusions do not follow.
By the way is not the disappearence of those carbon sinks part and parcel of AGW?
The top people behind the AGW movement are billionaires (or aspiring billionaires). Had the Carbon Exchange worked out, and had the pawns been moved to produce a check-mate at Kyoto or Copenhagen, Al Gore would have found himself showered with so much money, he wouldn't likely have known what to do with it all. Thankfully, the CCX went bankrupt and finally folded up.
I am not saying that humans have "no" influence on the climate. What I am saying is that CO2 emissions are irrelevant. This may seem contradictory at first, but the problem we are dealing with is growing population and the resulting deforestation. If we hadn't lost half a billion hectares of forest in the last 30 years alone, we wouldn't have the issue of increasing CO2, whether of natural or human source. And half a billion hectares... that's just since 1980 alone, and not the entire industrial age. Humanity is robbing the planet of it's lungs, by destroying both the oceans as well as the forests. Lower emissions will be irrelevant on a planet without forests. And while the developing nations blame the industrialized countries for CO2 emissions, it is in fact the developing world, and especially Africa, which is destroying the forests at a rapid rate.
Were it not for immigration, population in the developed world would already be declining, though not as fast as it needs to. But the poor are not poor by choice or because of being environmentally conscious. They are poor because they are oppressed and without opportunity. That is the only reason. Bring them to the developed world, and they will become a cancer on the planet, just like we are.
Without reduction in human population, this planet is doomed, no matter whether the Goldman Sachs and Rothschild bankers get to profit from AGW or not.
An honest human: Jonathan Edwards. CHEERS!
I'm curious--do you argue against evolution, too? Both subjects are "controversial" because of politics rather than science, so it's an honest question.
There is plenty of evidence for Evolution, and nobody profits from the science. Religion, like the preaching of AGW however, is very profitable.
This can't be a question of science. That matter is settled, as demonstrated time and again.
There is much money to be made in chemistry, as well. If your dismissal of science that provides a financial incentive as "religion," presumably that which requires faith rather than evidence, then you must dismiss many, many areas of scientific inquiry. You probably didn't want to say that, but that's what you ended up saying.
Either way, it shows a sloppiness of thought that tends to make me take your posts even less seriously. The political dispute regarding climate change can no more be regarded as science than an argument over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But then, there is much money to be made by denying the science, that's very, very true. Just ask the oil companies if you don't believe it.
"The sun is currently producing fewer sunspots than it has in more than a century. Florida State researchers tell us this may predict bad U.S.hurricane seasons. They say that when the sunspot numbers peak, within the (roughly) 11-year sunspot cycle, the U.S. has less than a 25 percent chance of being hit with a hurricane. The odds of a hurricane rise to 64 percent in the lowest-sunspot years. Even more important, the probability of three or more hurricanes hitting the U.S.in a season increases dramatically during low-sunspot periods.
Years with few sunspots and relatively high ocean temperatures are less stable, and thus trigger more hurricanes, reports James Elsner, a geography professor at FloridaState. He says “With fewer sunspots, there’s less energy at the top of the atmosphere.” Thus the temperature above the hurricane are cooler, he told Florida Today. The differential creates more instability and stronger storms. Our atmosphere responds dramatically to changes in the sun’s UV light, because the ozone layer readily absorbs the UV heat.
Humans have known for 400 years—since Galileo—that sunspots correlate with climate changes on earth. A startling lack of sunspots predicted both of the coldest periods of the Little Ice Age, the Sporer Minimum that began in 1460, and the Maunder Minimum, which began in 1645. More recently the Dalton Minimum predicted severe cold in the early 1800s.
We’ve also known since 1984 that sunspots correlate strongly with abrupt-but-moderate Dansgaard-Oescher cycles in the earth’s temperature regime—a 2-4 degree C shift about every 700 years. These changes have produced the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warming, the Dark Ages, the Roman Warming and a whole series of moderate climate cycles going back at least 1 million years. The sunspot index has a 79 percent correlation with the earth’s temperatures since 1860, while CO2 has only a 22 percent correlation. The sunspot index has been predicting global cooling since 2000.
Changes in sunspots have also predicted the failure of many human societies over the past 5000 years—including the collapse of the Mayan civilization and the death of the Roman Empire. The Mayans suffered “a century of drought” after 800 AD. The Roman Empire collapsed about 540AD after the end of the Roman Warming, which had given good crop-growing weather to both Europe and North Africa for more than 700 years. The shift into the Dark Ages turned the cropping seasons cloudy, cool and unstable, with violent storms and untimely frosts. That meant no more free bread for Roman citizens, no grain to feed its legions, and no food to bribe barbarian tribes.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change continues to predict strong warming for the earth over coming centuries, due to rising levels of atmospheric CO2. However, CO2 makes up only about .03 percent of the atmosphere, and humans contribute only about 3 percent of [that].
Roy Spencer, of the University of Alabama Huntsville, collates the temperature data from the satellites. He says it’s likely that the IPCC has got it backwards. Instead of higher CO2-induced temperatures creating fewer clouds; fewer clouds may let more solar heat come to earth, and vice versa. That would account for the predictive failures of the global climate models. The models did not foresee the recent cooling of the oceans since 2003, for example.
The sunspots, in fact, now predict a 30-year cooling, to be delivered by the Pacific Ocean’s shift into its cool phase. That, too, will undoubtedly be a product of the sun’s internal chemistry and further evidence of the sun’s massive importance to Planet Earth.
Resources:
J.H. Elsner et al., 2010, “Daily tropical cyclone intensity response to solar ultraviolet radiation,” Geophysical Research letters, Vol. 37.
Roy Spencer, Testimony before the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, July 22, 2008.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/23948
Jonathan; assuming that you are right (you are not) just looking at the physics of the matter. when you have a spinning globe that has X amount of weight at one pole and another weight at the other pole and you start losing weight at 1 pole what do you think is going to happen to the spinning globe? The only question in my mind is how fast or slow would the globe try to stablize. Slow we stand a chance; fast, forget it. Tony
bbr-001
The problem isn't "right", the problem is exactly what I am pointing out. The arrogance, the condecending attitude of the little tyrants that believe they can lecture, impose their will by subtrefuge (EPA), pretend that only they have the answers and absolutely refuse to recognize the fact that this is an area that people can be led to but not forced to.
A group gathered in Cancun or anywhere else cannot impose anything on the people of the world. They cannot dictate solutions nor can they demonstraste that their proposals have any merit. Witness electric cars. A boondoggle if anyone ever saw one. Or Biofuels.
I am getting frustrated and disallusioned by the refusal of the liberal and progressive community to try other roads. Their insistance on doubling down on failed theories and methods is the act of lunsatics. Are they all Nancy Pelosi?
The Montreal Protocol for reduction/elimination of ozone depleting chemicals is the best example of an international agreement where everyone went home and fixed the problem. Of course the damage fom CFCs was more obvious than from GHGs, and the problem much easier to fix. (It was also a GW protocol because most CHCs are strong GHGs.)
James Hansen is not an arrogant little tyrant. He is a professional scientist turned activist because his own government (Bush admin) refused to acknowledge the threat to the point of censoring and editing his work. I find the Fox News pundits arrogant as they employ the "Big Lie" theory trying to dismiss GW at every chance while obscuring the science.
Its probably too late already, but freedoms will be lost in a world of climate refugees, and food and water shortages.
Who is being arrogant here, mm?
The time-chart of Greenlands ice mass shows fairly constant ice-mass until about 1995. After that, the best description is that it looks like the track of someone who jumped off a cliff: accelerating downward. When things accelerate it's that much more difficult to predict how they'll end up.
Its important to realize, as well, that Greenland is at the end of this chain. It starts when we burn coal, and first the atmosphere feels it, then the ocean feels it, and finally the ice in the ice caps feel it. Greenland's fate for the next 50 years was made in the last 150 years. But what we do in the next 50 years, determines its fate thereafter. It took forever to get the ice caps to start melting. Don't think that if we stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, they'll know we did anything for 50 years.
This is all like a bad, slow-motion nightmare. It's even more chilling when you have guys like Jonathan Edwards coldly denouncing the people of Venice for building next to their supermarket, the Adriatic. Edwards: "There is no cure for idiocy." That's cold, brother. Trip over there and fall in love before it drowns.
No. Don't trip over there and see it before it drowns unless you have time to go by freighter. Flying is making a major contribution to the problem.
Flying is a vice that most environmentalists find far too easy to forgive.
flying can easily be offset with biofuels. That won't happen until governments get serious about supporting alternative energy and efficiency. And THAT won't happen until people like Jonathan Edwards take a look at what's at stake, like Venice, and begin advocating in the right direction.
But saying 1)flying is the problem and 2)environmentalists are at fault for that problem, is exactly the way Faux news wants you to talk about this issue. Yeah, lets all stop flying, driving, and eating meat. They'll LOVE you on the Glenn Beck show: you speak directly to the fears the right harbors about progressive concern over this issue. Most of them already know that the planet is warming, and they know why. But compared to losing their Playstation and their Big Mac, the planet can go steam itself. If we can't get them to loosen their grip on the game controller long enough to take action on this issue, we all lose together. And you don't start that discussion by saying they'll have to give up the game controller forever: especially since its not true. No one believes that in order to solve global warming, we're all going to have to give up flying. Well, no one who wants to be taken seriously, anyway.
Biofuels also not only create C02 just the same, but at the same time steal valuable farmland from food production to fuel production. It's just dumb.
There is no alternative energy with the density of oil and gas. Not only are most touted "alternatives" extremely inefficient as compared to energy input/output, but likewise require the input of "rare earths", the mining of which is extremely environmentally destructive.
There is no shortcut to stopping environmental destruction. It can only be reached by way of humans having smaller families and global population dropping.
As to your second paragraph, I am really not sure what that was all about. If you believe the "AGW-gospel", then you must also believe when these same scientists tell you that, to reach sustainability, we cannot individually produce more CO2 than 2 metric tons a year. The average American sits at over 20. I am at about 10 myself, as I live a frugal lifestyle. There is no way I can cut back my lifestyle another 80%. Not a chance in a hell. Even the average third-worlder produces 4 metric tons, meaning they'd have to reduce their impact by 50% still. You get my drift? It's a Quixotic battle against windmills. Unless humans deal with the root causes of all the environmental destruction - global human population - our planet is history, for mammals, birds, reptilians and fish. There is no shortcut.
Sure, it won't hurt to stop air travel. It won't hurt to stop pumping oil. It won't hurt driving cars. Of course not, because you'll be just fine when you lose your ability to provide for yourself and your family. The AGW-preachers expect us to sacrifice our employment "for the greater good". But then, of course, that does not apply to them. They sacrifice absolutely nothing.
Bring human population down, and you solve the problems the planet faces. It will take a hundred years, and yet, it's so simple a solution.
Ah, there's the rub, those freighters are a big issue as well. See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/13/climatechange.pollution
or
http://bit.ly/e5CgjS
True scale of C0₂ emissions from shipping revealed
Leaked UN report says pollution three times higher than previously thought
Yes, but the freighter is going to go whether or not there are passengers booked. No freighter is going to sail just because it has passengers.
An even better way to cross an ocean would be by fuel-efficient, wind-assisted passenger ships but these don't exist because they can't compete with cheap quick air travel.
Must watch video on all electric cars:
http://www.linktv.org/programs/ted-talks-shai-agassi-and-william-kamkwamba
Few know of Carbon Farming, but it is a much safer, much easier, much cheaper alternative to geoengineering, and brings with it a multitude of benefits for preserving biodiversity, reducing poverty and fighting hunger. Check out this article:
Microfinancing a Carbon Farming Solution: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-micro-financing-carbon-farming-solution
Expect the carbon industry shills to nay say all the way to the bank, even if future flooding wipes out the computers that record their deposits.
Still, even though climate catastrophe is looming, still, the highest priorities of the US and its NATO allies is to make war in the Middle East (Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, Syria, Lebanon). These wars get automatic funding into the trillions of dollars, and no national media or political parties dare to even question whether or not this is a good idea. War and more war, that is what we want.
Here is the Faux News edited headline for this story:
"With global population predicted to rise by another 2 billion
people over the next 90 years, climate change will result
in a net gain of 1 billion new home dwellers."
Hip Hip Hooray! Let the good times roll...
I'm thinking that maybe we can sacrifice the lower floors of our building and fill them in. Then we can move the occupants to the roof and put up some tents for them to live in. Waterfront property for everybody!
Thank God the IMF will relieve them of their homes before they have to risk being flooded out of them!
The climate change calculations are based on the linear computer approximate models that predict gradual change of temperature in response to rise in CO2. It might not be that, as the entire system changes its behaviour, and jumps to a much hotter state.The thermometer is the expanding ocean, growing faster than predicted. This is the fears of James Lovelock in his "Changing Face of Gaia".
The effects on climate of our growing billions of people, their livestock and pets, their agriculture and power stations, are at fault. The climate change process comes to equalibrium only after the people have largely gone. The Cancun meeting squabble is about who gets to sacrifice first. Their answers will be much the same. "Not I, not my people". Sacrifice will be decided by the power to resist it. See how ungenerously carbon rich Australia today is building new coal power stations and refurbishing old ones, when energy conservation and renewables such as solar thermal are available. Actions, not words decide our fate.
The world has lost half a billion hectares of forest [carbon sink] in the last 30 years alone.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/Deforestation.htm
ecology is the substitute for democracy
edweg
All the while the ticking "hydrogen bomb" of non-linear positive feedback loops, ie. methane stored in the perma frost sits in the background like some unseen behemoth. None of the models take this into account, because it's not possible to calculate these complexities yet.
But the great fear is long before we get to 4 degree celsius (many scientist I've read state 2degree Celsius could possibly trigger this) massive run away global warming in fact ends in annihilation of man made societies. It means 4 degrees could come a whole hell of alot faster than this article implies. And 4 degrees guarantees you 6 to 8, which once met guarantees you an additional 10 to 12. Somewhere between 5 and 6 wipes out the whole fucking Amazon Rain Forrest! Forget electric cars, insulated homes, going vegan, buying locally or green venture capital investments: no one's gonna have any fucking food, and whole regions are gonna watch their agricultural lands go up in smoke and dust.
We are supposed to understand we're in a race to get things done before that methane releases, that this isn't a causal pursuit, this is life or death. And that we are running out of time.
But everywhere I look this seems to be treated as some other 'issue' as opposed to 'The Issue.'I sense no real urgency in our culture, government, hell even the majority of 'greens' I know personally. It's hard to stomach just going to the movies or causal conversation with my friends (wow did you see family guy last night?)while right in front on my face is this mega leviathan issue that seems to be treated as though there's something else to talk about.
That's what's going to kill us, the inability to put Jon Stewart away (pop culture and the endless search of entertainment)and do the unpleasant task of focusing on tearing into our government and citizenry's ass to get things done, as if our lives depended on it. How do we do it? Cause this docile non-confrontational'be the change you want to see in the world' motto doesn't stand a friggin chance, of slowing this process down.
If I explain nicely to my friends, they just wait until the conversation is over than go right back to 'America's top Model.' If I get in their face, they just shut down, make a ton of excuses, accuse me of having a self righteous opinion, then go back to Dancing with the Stars.
What do you do? What can I do?