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Are US Floods, Fires Linked to Climate Change?
The short answer to the question of whether or not on-going floods in the US Midwest and fires in Texas are linked to a warming Earth is: maybe. The long answer, however, is that while it is difficult—some argue impossible—for scientists to link a single extreme weather event to climate change, climate models have long shown that extreme weather events will both intensify and become more frequent as the world continues to heat up. In other words, the probability of such extreme events increases along with global average temperature.
A stop sign is seen surrounded by floodwater from the Mississippi River on Wednesday in Commerce, Mo. Powerful storms that swept through the nation's midsection have pushed river levels to dangerous heights and are threatening to flood several towns in Missouri. Uncommon weather is becoming more common. Last year alone the world—from Russia to Pakistan to the US to Australia to the Amazon—was rocked by record-setting droughts and floods, destroying crops, creating refugees, and taking lives. (AP Photo | JEFF ROBERTSON) "There have always been extreme events," Peter Stott, a climatologist from the UK’s Met Office, told Yale360 in a piece on extreme weather and climate change. "Natural variability does play a role, but now so does climate change. It is about changing the odds of the event happening."
Drought and Fire
Drought conditions along with unseasonably warm temperatures and high winds in Texas has led to a number of massive fires, burning up over 2,300 square miles and killing three people, including two volunteer firefighters. In all, 886 fires have been recorded in Texas this spring.
"By now, most people get that you can't attribute any single weather event on global warming," John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas' state climatologist and a professor at Texas A&M University, told the McClatchy-Tribune news service. "But some things are clear: temperatures have been going up, and models all agree that the temperature rise will continue unless we get some massive volcanic eruptions or the sun suddenly becomes much dimmer."
Floods
According to renowned meteorologist Jeff Master's blog flooding of the Mississippi River and the Ohio River in the Midwest is being 'enhanced' by near-record sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, which is pushing warm, humid air into the Midwest. Sea surface temperatures in the Gulf are nearly 1 degree Celsius above average. Temperatures have only hit such highs in April twice in over a hundred years, both times in the past two decades: 2002 and 1991.
The question than becomes how much is climate change responsible for the near-record temperatures in the Gulf? Or is it instead natural variability. Climatologist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research has an answer.
"It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both," Trenberth told the New York Times last year in a front-page story on the connections between extreme weather and climate change. According to Trenberth, warmer global temperatures have put around 4% additional water vapor into weather systems over the past 30 years, producing heavier precipitation dumps.
Science moving forward
Despite reluctance to link one event to warming, experts are moving forward on the science behind how climate change impacts extreme weather events. However, instead of directly attributing such extreme events to climate change, researchers are capable of showing how climate change raises the event's probability.
Researchers have recently published landmark studies that found climate change made the deadly 2003 heatwave in Europe twice as likely to occur, and increased the likelihood of a 2000 flood in the UK by two to three times. The opposite has also been found. A recent study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded that the crippling drought and fires in Russia last year were not linked to climate change. However, that study has since been criticized by Trenberth in Yale360 for not taking into account unusually high sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean.
Climate science by its very nature is complex and sometimes messy; extreme weather events can even be more perplexing. Such events are by definition very out of the ordinary. Although people may desire a 100% causation behind them uncommon events hardly ever prescribe to a simple 'smoking gun'. For example, extinction is an extreme biological event, yet, like extreme weather, species extinction often has more causes behind it than one. A species may be pressured by some combination of hunting and habitat loss before an invasive species arrives and finally pushes it over the edge. Some facts, though, are clear: climatologists agree that anthropogenic climate change is making extreme weather events happen more frequently (and with more intensity), just as human impacts—such as deforestation, poaching, pollution—is making the extinction of species occur at rate around 100 to 1000 times the average.
Uncommon weather is becoming more common. Last year alone the world—from Russia to Pakistan to the US to Australia to the Amazon—was rocked by record-setting droughts and floods, destroying crops, creating refugees, and taking lives.
"The climate is changing. Extreme events are occurring with greater frequency, and in many cases with greater intensity," Jay Lawrimore, chief of climate analysis at the National Climatic Data Center told the New York Times.
With nations refusing to seriously tackle greenhouse gas emissions, predictions of future warming have become dire. In terms of extreme weather this likely means even more and even worse. As Joe Romm of the blog Climate Progress writes, "in short, we ain't seen nothing yet."
64 Comments so far
Show AllAnd now tornadoes. From a weather website:
"warm humid air from the south is clashing with the cool dry air coming down from Canada and where the two meet is where we find severe thunderstorms and tornadoes."
So, the current rash of tornadoes can also be traced to global warming-- at least as a significant contributing factor.
I wonder-- if a tornado took out the house of an Exxon executive or right-wing governor, would that make them think about this.
Probably not.
"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."
OK, I'll ask the question, what have you personally done about climate change rat4? Is there anything that can be done on an individual level? Organize is the only thing going folks! The only thing that works are people in the street, that's how it always gets done.... Show me any other way that works, elections don't, that's for sure. BTW, has anyone brought up the fact that one thing that made the 'gulf'' warmer this year is layers of oil on the top and the bottom of that body of water. There has been only one other year that it has been this warm.. Warm water, more moisture to mix with cold dry wind-shear from the north and bingo, destruction alley. It would be grand to blame everything on BP wouldn't it? But that would leave out all the other greedy corps that destroy the world and it's people for profit....Yeah! More money for rich folks!!!
And I was worried that the future was going to be boring....
Do tornadoes, floods, fires, earthquakes etc. get facilitated by global warming? Probably. Does the greed and power of the energy industry promote denial of global warming? Definitely.
Nope - can't blame earthquakes on anthropogenic or any other instigator of climate change, except maybe volcanic activity.
"Fire and Ice: Melting Glaciers Trigger Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanos
Geologists Say Global Warming Expected to Cause Many New Seismic Events"
"Writing in New Scientist magazine, Bill McGuire, professor of geological hazards at University College in London, said: "All over the world evidence is stacking up that changes in global climate can and do affect the frequencies of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and catastrophic sea-floor landslides. Not only has this happened several times throughout Earth's history, the evidence suggests it is happening again.""
http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/earthquakes.htm
Do tornadoes, floods, fires, earthquakes etc. get facilitated by global warming? Probably. Does the greed and power of the energy industry promote denial of global warming? Definitely.
Sorrow for the people in the way of the one mile wide tornado that hit Tuscaloosa. I'm not sure that humanity has ever seen anything that big before.
Yes, near-record sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico created supersaturated warm air, which clashed with polar air.
One tornado isn't a reliable indicator of climate change. 150 tornadoes in one day isn't a reliable indicator. However, these things start to add up. Tornado damage is clearly on the increase in the past few years, and so half of our country becomes tornado alley or hurricane alley.
Tonight on the news our local meteorologist announced April will end the coldest month on record, last year we has the coldest spring on record, the year before we had the hottest spell - over 100 days with out rain - in Seattle!) on record.
My point is, for my area, every year the weather is breaking records either more extremely hot or cold. It obviously didn't used to be like this.
10 years ago I read where the top 10 worst weather disasters happened in the last 10 years, a few months ago I read a new assessment saying the same thing and listing the disasters from the last 10 years. Obviously something is going on if every decade we have unseen levels ever before, of weather problems.
"Unusual weather we're having, ain't it?" The Cowardly Lion, 1939
If memory serves, more severe weather was predicted as part of global warming. Perhaps we ain't seen nothin' yet...
Ask any engineer what happens when you subject a complex system with multiple feedback loops (the global weather system) to a large step input (a sudden rise in CO2 concentrations).
The answer is: oscillations. Some of which may take quite a while to dampen out.
Ten, fifteen years ago, I was a climate change agnostic. But, from my engineering training, I reasoned that if there was some truth to the global warming claims, then we'd start seeing weather extremes: hotter highs, colder lows, wetter rainy seasons, dryer dry seasons, stronger hurricanes, and departures of the jet streams and ocean currents.
Well, all of these have begun to happen. Some more than others. And some of them have barely started. We can expect them to stick around for quite a while...
And I'm not an agnostic any more.
BUG HUNTER: Thank you for allowing enlightenment to happen, and demonstrating the flexibility to change your mind. If more people got over their media-induced denial, perhaps we'd see two things happen:
1. A groundswell of public pressure pushing against the old energy behemoths to actually get out of the way of Green Progress. Then wiser means of adaptation could begin to occur on a massive scale.
2. A change in lifestyles, one that advances beyond the current consumption ("Shop till you drop") model into one that upholds a greater appreciation for simple pleasures.
Maybe your post will wake up others, although it's tough to stay asleep as increasingly many of us find ourselves in the direct route of yet another wild climate-change event.
"hotter highs, colder lows..."
Your comments are correct except that there have not been any "colder lows" . While the eastern half of N-America (above about 40 deg latitude) and NW Europe saw persistent periods of below-average winter temperatures, the veru odd characteristic was that very few record daily minimum temperatures, no monthly record minimums, were set. Yet, many areas set record daily maximum temperatures once thawing weather set in by February. And following the early winter cold spell, NW Europe set some record high temperatures in January.
This is the trend I have been seeing in mid-atlantic US. Daily high records (expecially record high nightime low temperatures) are continue to be set, but we never set record daily low temperatures anymore - an event that, statistically, should be occurring as often a record highs, or at least a couple times a year.
"...record lows in San Diego County today, says the National Weather Service."
Union-Tribune, July 6, 2010.
"San Diego's second day of record low temperatures"
August 29, 2010.
"SAN DIEGO -- The holiday season is off to a cold start, with record low temperatures and a frost advisory in effect for Thursday night."
Nov. 26, 2010.
here's a page for California's weather
http://www.weatherbyday.com/california/california-december-weather.html
month by month (I gave it a quick scan), the highs are higher and the lows lower, up and down the state, from Eureka to southernest Cal.
PJ: here in the Pacific NW, we have had three consecutive years of colder and wetter than normal spring weather; lower low temps and lower high temps too. I would also add that the "normal" tornado season was a spring phenomenum, now or at least the last few years, these tornado storms are occurring all throughout the year. What's more, climate change models have predicted more frequent, more intense storms.
Last year where we are in NC was a very interesting year indeed. We had a summer with the most days in the 90s ever, followed by one of the coldest winters on record. Literally one extreme to another.
During last weeks tornado swarm, we had a F0 about 5 miles away from us. I didn't think that much about until I drove by where it hit. It had traveled through the woods cutting trees down like a scythe. I can't imagine what a F4 or F5 would be like.
Two weeks and two major tornado outbreaks down here. I hope this is it for a while. This stuff starts wearing on the nerves after a while.
I checked the weather data at Raleigh-Durham for the past 6 months.
Mean temperature deviation form normal:
November 2010 +0.7
December 2010 -8.1 degrees
January 2011 -2.0
February 2011 +4.8
March 2011 +0.7
No daily record low temperatures were set.
Six daily record high tempeatures were set - on Nov 27, Feb 18, and 21, and March, 1, 18 and 23.
So, Aside form December, it was not an extremely below average winter expecially when the much-above average February is included. Surely, "one of the coldest winters on record" should have included a lot of daily record lows (like the famous winter of 76/77) but none at all were set. Yet six record highs were set.
I encourage everyone to check their own local weather data. A lot of this "it was a cold winter" is just due to a normal of slightly below normal winter following so many extremely warm winters. The west coast might be getting a cold anomaly, but nowhere else.
Where I live, everyone was talking about the "cold winter" too, yet lake Erie froze over later, and thinner than most winters in 1960's or 70's. - it just seemed like a good ice cover after several years of nearly no ice at all - some years even in the bays.
I did misspeak. I meant December. I was going by memory of what I hear the forecasters say down here, and had made a mistake.
In Central Texas, I believe we had several record lows (for the dates) this past winter. In the summer of 2009, we had highs above 39 C (102.2 F) or 40 C (104 F) far more than in any previous year for which records have been kept around here, though we apparently only tied for the number of days above 100 F, which some inappropriately focus on.
Human societies and the political environments that exist within them can also be seen as complex systems with multiple feedback loops, and an economic crash can be seen as a large step input. I will be surprised if we do not see some extreme oscillations in the social behavior and in the political environment of the US in the coming years.
Lucky for us that climate change is only a theory, and not even mentioned in Leviticus. Otherwise, we might stop borrowing $1,000,000,000 per week to kill poor people on the other side of the planet because they want to practice their own religion, in their own way, in their own communities. For some reason, we Americans cannot stand that and feel compelled to send drones and commandos to kill them. We need to keep our priorities straight. Money for drones to bomb weddings in Pakistan but no money for levees and local clean energy in Missouri. Hint: in the next election vote for anyone not-Republican and not-Democrat. Even the Trotsky Party or the Maharishi Yogi Party would be better that the Republican Party or Democratic (sic) Party.
SERIOUS: Once again I urge scrutiny as per the use of this term "we." How many in this forum, for instance, are advocates for sending drones to foreign lands? How many in this forum represent the millions who are against these wars? Possibly the same millions who wanted a single payer health care delivery system. Possibly the same millions who did not want to see government hucksters pay off the banksters who imploded the global economy. Possibly the same millions who would prefer to see taxes raised on the wealthy. Possibly the same millions who do NOT want to vote for either pre-vetted corporately-controlled candidate.
In other words, to reinforce the idea that the policymakers actually take public opinion into question, or REPRESENT US, is ludicrous. The notion of a cohesive "we" behind policies of naked aggression, senseless resource depletion, and ultimate BAD KARMA are not shared by millions.
As another poster once put it, "Not going along."
Point well taken. There are millions of citizens of the United States of America that bear no individual responsibility for sending drones to blow up brown people in Pakistan.
By the same token all citizens of the United States of America or any other country participating in such bear a collective responsibility.
So by way of example I do not believe I as an individual was to blame in any way or supported the treatment of our first nations people. As a Canadian Citizen however, I believe that these crimes must be made right even if it costs me personally.
Indeed even a person gaining his or her Canadian Citizenship today after immigrating from Vietnam 10 years ago would bear a certain "Collective" responsibility for the same.
Very well put. Good to read a post which rings true.
I understand what you're saying but you also have to understand the use of "we" can simply be a writer showing solidarity or attempting not to cast judgment. Yes, we aren't them and they aren't us and the "we the people" aren't the ones sending drones to foreign lands (although some of us condone it).
But chastising everyone who uses "we" can become a debate about semantics (not uncommon on here). Is policing the use of a pronoun in message board posts really the best use of your input? Unfortunately we now live in a world where language and word choice needs to be forgiven to some extent. English is a common second language, there has been a simplification of the language and a loss of subtle differences in word meaning.
Let's discuss and/or debate the substance and spirit of people's opinions not pick apart every word used to make them, especially something as trivial as we. We (the human race) are making a bloody mess of the place. Sitting around all day long insisting all comments make it absolutely clear it is "them" not "us" who are responsible for the mess probably isn't going to help us much… nor is it 100% honest.
KIELY: I think it is an IMPORTANT distinction to make, right along the lines of George Lakoff's analysis of the power of framing. If issues are framed as if WE all agree with them, or that citizens back them, it reinforces consensus where there is none. And many people are conformists by nature. If they hear that "everyone is doing this," or "saying that," they might be inclined to lend passive consent, and that is dangerous!
GW: I agree with you. I would however add that there is debt not only to the Indigenous, but also to the Black Race, the Yellow Race (from Hiroshima, Nagasaki & Vietnam), and now the "Brown" race due to the abhorrent attacks on the oil-rich regions of the Middle East that belong to their citizens.
GERD: As a matter of fact, my income was so low this year I didn't pay a dime. So watch the tone of accusation. Before casting a stone, take the board away from your own eyes.
Your point is well taken. But the fact is, US troops and planes are abroad killing the people who live there, and they are doing this as authorized and funded by the US government, which is authorized and funded by the US population. "We" are doing this. I, like you and probably many readers of CommonDreams don't like it. But there is no denying that we are part of a society that is doing it. Our Congress votes over-whelmingly in favor of this, over and over and over. Both houses of Congress. Our media are unanimous in applauding. Successive administrations elected and re-elected every 4 years do this. The facts show that we have a strong and enduring national consensus that it is a good idea to attack Muslim nations with occupation forces, cruise missiles, and drones.
I have to agree, though I understand and support Siouxrose's position, which she's made a number of times in the past. I personally have deplored with every gram of my being the actions taken by this gov't against, most recently, middle eastern Arab countries, for reasons that have been shown exhaustively to be deliberate deceptions and lies of the most heinous order. Always for oil, always for extending global hegemony, for reasons of Empire and corporate profit-taking.
I have never backed what this country does abroad for over 40 years. But I have paid taxes, and I've participated in the economy, which also leads to taxes, and these taxes have gone directly to pay for all the madness, mayhem and murder this country unleashes around the world for purposes I find unconscionably reprehensible. So I've done my part to help fund this international criminal enterprise known as the United States of America. Totally against my will, but nonetheless. I haven't taken the measure of tax resistance for several reasons, but the outcome is that I haven't had to go to jail for tax evasion, or had my finances seized by the government, such as they are.
If enough of us would refuse to pay taxes to a system that uses over half of our tax money to fund these criminal wars, maybe we could stop the insanity. But it's never more than a marginal few who stand up and openly refuse to pay into the death machine.
What's this to do with climate change? The military now is primarily engaged in these criminal pursuits so we can get access to Mideast oil, so Exxon, Shell, BP and the other members of the oil mafia can keep raking in trillions annually, and we can pay for it all. This is as vicious as any circle ever gets. And the consequences include global warming and its attendant extreme weather events. So we've wrecked the world in order that our oil addictions can pay off obscenely for the oil mafia, and our tax money has enabled this destruction directly. Even when we protest it with every fiber of our being.
Agreed. Of course there are tricks being played (voter fraud, etc etc), but that doesn't change the bottom line fact that we are responsible. We will have a better system when enough of us commit to envisioning it and making it happen, no matter what.
SERIOUS: If ours was not "upside down world" I would agree with you. How can we talk about what the US population endorses when the Congress, Senate, and Courts all facilitate the policies of the corporate elites, or what Alan MacDonald would term the interests of "Empire?"
It's not like our vote is sacrosanct. Between the shenanigans pulled by our Supreme Court Justices in altering the 2000 public mandate, added to the crap that went on with voting machines in 2004, how can you say the public has backed what's going on? Bush never won!
When polls show a vast percentage difference between what citizens want--in the way of policy--versus WHAT actually gets executed, then there again we see no grounds to support the idea that any meaningful consensus exists.
Finally, and I don't think this point can be driven home enough, there are 3 areas of mass indoctrination that tend to reinforce pro-authority conservative views in MILLIONS of Americans.
1. The sports-entertainment nexus with its emphasis on teams, competition, and the all-important quest of winning. (This simplies the understanding of ANYTHING outside of seemingly polarized contexts).
2. The rise and powerful influence of fundamentalist religions. These bodies impart to their faithful flock a "religious call" to obey authority figures.
3. The right wing control of radio added to its influence over "news" and most of the MSM. There it can repeat messages ad nauseum until people believe these are true. (Remember how many thought Saddam Hussein was behind 911?)
Orwell, Bernays, PT Barnum and others have explained that it's pretty easy to manipulate people if you use the right buzz words, subliminal cues, and repetition of messages.
Given the afore-mentioned factors, I cannot agree that the US public is in support of most of what's being done in our names.
Does an alcoholic have free will once he's under the influence? Maybe there was free will prior to his falling under the influence. That's how I feel about large segments of the US public. They are under thrall to forces that bypass their intellects and chart their course from entirely unconscious dimensions.
SCRIBE: Thank you. You totally "get" it.
EPHRAIM: Thank you for the excellent fine-tuned analysis. You are correct that much of what we consume sends profits back to The Beast. Yet as I have also laid out in previous postings, based on what I learned from Buddhism, each is held to account at their level of participation. Those of us who happen to be part of the nation, will experience group karma, that is true. Yet there is a vast difference between the idiots who yell "Support our troops," and those of us who do not support war in any way, shape or form.
If anyone expects a purity litmus test, they're on the wrong planet! Living by Grace is challenged every which way by our society; for its members have been taught to exalt force first, bully, curse, display reckless anger misconceived of as macho power, and altogether show a sickening lack of integrity. To live the courage of one's convictions, especially when these take "The Greater Good" into account is an ideal many of us strive for. When we miss the mark, it's best to learn to show compassion for ourselves. That way we can put it into play in how we deal with others (a solid karmic defense).
In my view, humanity has come to the end of a phase, and most of us are facing final exams. I don't know ANYONE who is not experiencing a "test" in some arena of their lives. How we handle adversity helps us to grow and better face what we are made of. The nation needs a fearless moral reckoning, and that's why I find the LIE that the population lends its consent to policies of murder, resource exhaustion, and senseless waste to be deadly... for it allows the diabolical masquerade(s) to continue. Some apparently DO understand and still work evil for their own short-sighted ends. Wall St honchos, corrupt bankers, the corporatists who decide to kill yet another ecosystem for higher quarterly profits, the makers of war, the politicians who support all these horrific policies of plunder and predation... their karmic scores are OFF The cosmic charts these days.
In my view, the string of recent, massive climate disruptions, some man-made, are the definitive wake-up call. That's why the few in the forum who try to cite ridiculous, irrelevant statistics or some other bogus claim intended to make us all think this stuff is NORMAL deserve to be held in contempt! They are standing in the way of that massive wake-up call that might actually draw enough of us into an awakening that would actively prompt the behavior shifts that will truly mean life and death for our species.
RODENT: I hear you. I cry for the dolphins in the toxic Gulf of Mexico.
We, the animals: It's THEIR world, too.
The bees, the fishes, the bugs, the reptiles, the birds, the mammals (sorry if I left anyone out)--"livestock", too, and everyone else mockingly devalued as "sub-human"--IT'S THEIR WORLD, THEIR PLANET, TOO! THEIR LIVES (not lifestyles or livelihoods). They don't rely on governments or votes.
They do not "go along," but have no choice against the cruel might of the more powerful us. They do have a voice, but the more powerful us don't care to listen. Do the policymakers care to listen to public opinion? What goes around, comes around (I guess).
In science, nothing - even the basic physical laws that hold up the building you are sitting in - are "facts". They are theories.
So, your point is???
Stutter post.
lickitornot sez: "I also will keep on saying that insisting it is an established fact and calling people "denier's" is about the most foolproof way to shoot yourself in the foot. The proof of this is the present state of the argument and the lack of credibility earned by the lie's (and some were proven flat out lie's), exaggeration's and over eager declaration's of probabilities as facts by the Gore's of the world."
lickitornot's predecessors sed: "I also will keep on saying that insisting it is an established fact and calling people "flat earther's" is about the most foolproof way to shoot yourself in the foot. The proof of this is the present state of the argument and the lack of credibility earned by the lie's (and some were proven flat out lie's), exaggeration's and over eager declaration's of probabilities as facts by the Plato's of the world."
HaHaHa! Brilliant!
Likeitornot, "I cannot condone the conceit of saying it is an established fact..." Scientists and politicians funded by big oil will, of course, deny anything that threatens their bottom line. Science based on profit is more like a religious belief than a reasonable conclusion based on observation. Global warming deniers have much in common with birthers, bankers, and other boneheads. We treat our lovely planet, our home, as if it were a toilet and wonder what stinks so bad. We miss the turn, and as we decend to the jagged rocks below, discuss whether gravity is a proven fact. Alas.
I can't regard people who can't form plurals as sources of wisdom in terms of science or philosophy, sorry.
Here's what I don't get. Pretend climate scientists said "due to climate change crime will skyrocket", and pretend pro-environment groups said "ok, let's join together to fight climate change so crime will go down". Whether you agree with the scientists or not, the end result is an attempt to lessen crime.
In the same way, what groups are saying now is let's get together and clean up the environment. How can anyone say No to that? And it tends to be religious people who protest the loudest (though not all, some are enlightened enough to realize their god may actually have given them earth to take care.)
I don't get it.
Hey, Kane!
the problem is that cleaning up the environment is directly opposed to the economic system we currently employ...
the declaration of the very planet as product, and the destruction of the planet to create further product, is absolutely necessary to drive profit for those violently manipulating the masses of land and people...
the rest of us ride along on this profit stream to remain able to purchase our shelter, food and water...
if we stop destroying the world, we will need to alter our economic system, which may well involve giving up a great deal, like the notion of private property and the possession of cool electro-gadgets...and may require killing others to do so...
this is the problem...
Corporations can't be held liable for the damage their global warming pollution causes any more than the cancers their nuclear plants produce or the emphysema their coal burning plants produce or the traffic deaths auto makers produce or the marine life destruction their oil wells produce because these things are too hard to prove.
" Caller after caller was saying "The socialists are out to take away my property."
This imposed identification with the wealthiest people on the planet is what's the matter with Kansas.
SCRIBE: It was big money (the same firm that worked similar faux magic for Big Tobacco) that did its utmost to undermine climate science by circulating a few emails done by climate scientists that weren't 100% "on board" due to the many variables that factor into complex equations.
BIG money sits down with PR people (a friend of mine described it like a scene out of the TV show "Bewitched,' wherein Darren would use a "storyboard" to set up the premise he hoped his advertising honchos could favorably relate to) to figure out what memes to circulate.
Earth is like the Titanic already hit by the iceberg. There are interests that just want to keep all the cheap seat customers busy down below so that the upper crust clientelle can make it to the lifeboats first. Imagine if panic set in? Imagine if citizens truly understood the degree to which their leaders are fiddling on 24K fiddles while our personal Rome is left to burn away?
The skillful defense attorney knows if he can establish reasonable doubt and get a few jury members to go along, the case will never be closed in his opponent's favor.
It's a derivative of that "mentality" that's muddying the waters on the vast majority of issues important to our times, and world citizenry. Other nations' people do not get their "news" through so controlled a prism. The irony is that they see further, but their nations are being booted into line by our MIC. Once the US money supply gets exposed for the full fiction it's become, then militarism will face new opponents. The scary thing about our military training all those private mercenaries is... what happens when those mercenaries get offered a better monetary deal elsewhere?
Recent "military laws" have held that these mercenaries are not necessarily answerable to a sovereign nation's law. At least that's my interpretation having read Glenn Greenwald's accounts, and witnessing the outcomes when women brought rape suits against this mercurial adversary.
Any society that bows to Mammon (the love of $) and/or Mars rules (MIC), ceases and desists from being a society under Law, Justice, or any precept of either. Amerika has largely crossed that Rubicon...
Thanks Sioux
1 what happens when those mercenaries get offered a better monetary deal elsewhere?
&
2 what happens to ALL the destructive science the industrial military complex has & is still researching and producing NANO WEAPONRY, LASER GADGETS, MICROWAVE DIRECT ENERGY WEAPONS, HARP NIGHTMARE, NOT TO MENTION NUCLEAR & other HORRORS, THAT APPLIES TO RUSSIA, CHINA & THE OTHERS.
lEON PANETTAS' STATEMENT " WE MUST REMAIN THE MOST POWERFUL MILITARY FORCE" (so we can grab what we want when we want) IS A PROVOCATION, AT BEST A SUBTITLE DECLARATION OF WAR, A CALL TO MILITARY ESCALATION & A HOPELESS CONFESSION THAT CAPITAL EMPIRE IS LOOSING ON EVERY OTHER LEVEL, POLITICALLY, ECONOMICALLY, DIPLOMATICALLY CULTURALLY & NOT LEAST IN TERMS OF PATH, VISION & WISDOM.
DEAR PANETTA IT'S LIKE MOVING SAND, YOU CAN TALK BUT U CAN'T MOVE, THE OTHER GIANT IS DOING THE OPPOSITE. NOT THAT WE LIKE GIANTS THEY'RE CLUMSY, THEY DESTROY EVERYTHING ON THEIR PATH. FRANKLY I WOULD LOVE TO SEA EARTH WITH FOUR/FIVE HUNDRED SMALL NATIONS, WHAT WONDERFUL PLACE EARTH WOULD BE. IT'S WHAT WOULD HAPPEN BETWEEN NOW & THAN THAT'S PROBLEMATIC. LETS SEE HOW MANY MORE WEAPONS YOU NEED? HOW MANY MORE COUNTRY YOU WILL LIBERATE? BEFORE YOUR NECK LEVELS THE MOVING SAND. OUR REAL PROBLEM IS """the corporation""" it look like you are about to dive deeper and faster.
No Terror No Torture Just Truth.
Seems like there were tornadoes even in 1927. And in fact, they were more destructive than this last batch.
World wide the temp has fallen. This according to HadCrut temp metrics. According to the logic of AGW....then it is cold temps that spawn tornadoes.
Well, yes in fact...that is what spawns tornadoes. Cold clashing with warm.
The thing most people forget is that news media will hype things to sell. That is their business. Please look at historical records before all of a sudden saying that what has happened in the past week has climatic implications.
Cairo, Illinois, is at the piece of land where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers meet.
It is a very poor, mostly Black town. (It's where Jim was going on his trip with Huckleberry Finn).
There is a choice to be made. The Army Corps of Engineers recommended to blow a levee to save Cairo from flooding. But the water would then flood Missouri farmland, so Missouri sued to stop it.
On TV last night they showed the press asking someone (the Governor of missouri? It wasn't clear) if he would rather flood farmland or Cairo?
He said "Cairo. Have you been there?"
He had to apologize, but the feeling is obviously shared by many.
Dear Friends,
I am convinced that the best thing that any individual can do to help slow or reverse climate change is to demonstrate that each of us can double carbon sequestration in our own yard. The most convincing thing I have done is to quadruple the growth of plums on the tree in my front yard:
http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/tw/plums.htm
I also like to show people my giant nuts:
http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/tw/walnuts.htm
because most folks laugh in relief when I let them handle my nuts.
Other people have doubled carbon sequestration in their yards using the same organic mineral supplements I am using. You can read some of their stories at:
http://www.subtleenergies.com/plant-lynx.htm
The best thing about this option is that it does not require the approval or support of existing corporate or government structures.
With kindest regards,
Barry Carter
bcarter at igc dot org
"I also like to show people my giant nuts . . . because most folks laugh in relief when I let them handle my nuts."
No doubt, you like to show them your banana tree as well.
Climate Change not-with-standing levees are built on flood plans to prevent bottom lands from flooding. They will flood eventually. Also levees make the river flow faster by narrowing the channel. Maybe we should not build on flood plains and if they flood periodically work with the farmer some other way.