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We've Arrived at a Moment of Decision
Al Gore's opening statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009:
We are here today to talk about how we as Americans and how the United
States of America as part of the global community should address the
dangerous and growing threat of the climate crisis.
We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home - Earth - is in grave danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.
Moreover, we must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our country must simultaneously solve two other worsening crises. Our economy is in its deepest recession since the 1930s. And our national security is endangered by a vicious terrorist network and the complex challenge of ending the war in Iraq honorably while winning the military and political struggle in Afghanistan.
As we search for solutions to all three of these challenges, it is becoming clearer that they are linked by a common thread - our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels. As long as we continue to send hundreds of billions of dollars for foreign oil - year after year - to the most dangerous and unstable regions of the world, our national security will continue to be at risk.
As long as we continue to allow our economy to remain shackled to the OPEC rollercoaster of rising and falling oil prices, our jobs and our way of life will remain at risk.
Moreover, as the demand for oil worldwide grows rapidly over the longer term, even as the rate of new discoveries is falling, it is increasingly obvious that the roller coaster is headed for a crash. And we're in the front car.
Most importantly, as long as we continue to depend on dirty fossil fuels like coal and oil to meet our energy needs, and dump 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, we move closer and closer to several dangerous tipping points which scientists have repeatedly warned - again just yesterday - will threaten to make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable destruction of the conditions that make human civilization possible on this planet.
We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.
For years our efforts to address the growing climate crisis have been undermined by the idea that we must choose between our planet and our way of life; between our moral duty and our economic well being. These are false choices. In fact, the solutions to the climate crisis are the very same solutions that will address our economic and national security crises as well.
In order to repower our economy, restore American economic and moral leadership in the world and regain control of our destiny, we must take bold action now.
The first step is already before us. I urge this Congress to quickly pass the entirety of President Obama's Recovery package. The plan's unprecedented and critical investments in four key areas - energy efficiency, renewables, a unified national energy grid and the move to clean cars - represent an important down payment and are long overdue. These crucial investments will create millions of new jobs and hasten our economic recovery - while strengthening our national security and beginning to solve the climate crisis.
Quickly building our capacity to generate clean electricity will lay the groundwork for the next major step needed: placing a price on carbon. If Congress acts right away to pass President Obama's Recovery package and then takes decisive action this year to institute a cap-and-trade system for CO2 emissions - as many of our states and many other countries have already done - the United States will regain its credibility and enter the Copenhagen treaty talks with a renewed authority to lead the world in shaping a fair and effective treaty. And this treaty must be negotiated this year. Not next year. This year.
A fair, effective and balanced treaty will put in place the global architecture that will place the world - at long last and in the nick of time - on a path toward solving the climate crisis and securing the future of human civilization.
I am hopeful that this can be achieved. Let me outline for you the basis for the hope and optimism that I feel.
The Obama administration has already signaled a strong willingness to regain U.S.leadership on the global stage in the treaty talks, reversing years of inaction. This is critical to success in Copenhagen and is clearly a top priority of the administration.
Developing countries that were once reluctant to join in the first phases of a global response to the climate crisis have themselves now become leaders in demanding action and in taking bold steps on their own initiatives. Brazil has proposed an impressive new plan to halt the destructive deforestation in that nation. Indonesia has emerged as a new constructive force in the talks. And China's leaders have gained a strong understanding of the need for action and have already begun important new initiatives.
Heads of state from around the world have begun to personally engage on this issue and forward-thinking corporate leaders have made this a top priority.
More and more Americans are paying attention to the new evidence and fresh warnings from scientists. There is a much broader consensus on the need for action than there was when President George H.W. Bush negotiated - and the Senate ratified - the Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 and much stronger support for action than when we completed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.
The elements that I believe are key to a successful agreement in Copenhagen include:
- Strong targets and timetables from industrialized countries and differentiated butbinding commitments from developing countries that put the entire world under a system with one commitment: to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and otherglobal warming pollutants that cause the climate crisis;
- The inclusion of deforestation, which alone accounts for twenty percent of the emissions that cause global warming;
- The addition of sinks including those from soils, principally from farmlands and grazing lands with appropriate methodologies and accounting. Farmers and ranchers in the U.S. and around the world need to know that they can be part of the solution;
- The assurance that developing countries will have access to mechanisms and resources that will help them adapt to the worst impacts of the climate crisis and technologies to solve the problem; and,
- A strong compliance and verification regime.
The road to Copenhagen is not easy, but we have traversed this ground before. We have negotiated the Montreal Protocol, a treaty to protect the ozone layer, and strengthened it to the point where we have banned most of the major substances that create the ozone hole over Antarctica. And we did it with bipartisan support. President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill joined hands to lead the way.
- Posted in
62 Comments so far
Show Allhttp://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/big_picture_solutions/scientists-and-economists.html
Sioux Rose
For the few on CD who dispute the findings of climate scientists and believe that global warming is a hoax, they'd still probably recognize the fiscal necessity of getting OFF the addiction to oil.
One thing that troubles me about Gore's speech, apart from it sounding so lock-step with the prevalent "democratic" mindset (which too often sounds suspiciously like its purported rival across the proverbial aisle) is there is NO mention of closing down the 700-plus bases that encircle the globe, no mention either of the egregious WASTE of fossil fuel to man and power and move that gigantic military machine around in pursuit of its next targeted (largely fabricated) enemy. The military uses a huge percentage of America's fossil fuel quotient, and for what? To lay to waste? To boast of providing security when in reality it gives birth to entire new potential enemy generations? THAT is the key waste of our time! And THAT requires discussion, along with all the green language frames.
Global warming and pollution (they do go together) are facts of life for anyone with eyes to see and a mind willing to look honestly at what currently is as oppossed top what once was. As for Bro Gore, talk is cheap when you accept no responsibility for doing anything.
Politicians of every persuasion are perfectly willing to compromise food, drug, mine, environmental, air traffic, and bridge saftey. They are perfectly willing to sell our great great great grandchildren into debt slavery and demand that moderate to low income wage earners pay more and more of their meager incomes in taxes.
The military however, being the most polluting as well as the most energy wasteful of all government functions remains yet a sacred cow whose posterior is french-kissed by nearly all politicians of every persuasion. Maybe all your talk about the idolatrous worship of Mars the war god has something to it. How else do we explain this bamboozlement of otherwise intelligent and capable people by the profiteers and high priests of death and destruction?
Poet
Sioux Rose
Hello, POET: Naturally I agree with the assessments related in your 3rd paragraph. I'd go further to bring up the scathing insight articulated by Martin Luther King, "That a nation that spends more on armaments than the social uplift of its people approaches spiritual death."
During these times when the money pot has been emptied by the least conscionable, that WAR is still ON the table while children starve has to qualify right up there with the worst of sins. But of course Catholicism in its efforts to maintain a wedge between Eden's intended lovers (that's boys and girls, folks) has managed to render unto the natural expression of lovemaking, the stigma of "sin," and so millions rant and rave over who you can "do it" with, or "when" or under "what conditions" to avoid the fate of "mortal sin" while the REAL sins are given free reign. This is a great travesty and one that can never be pointed out often enough. Granny D did a good job with it, as a true Aquarian courageous enough to tell the truth to the morally insulated.
The military industrial media complex MIMC)is the default stimulus package. Ending wars and closing bases in the current economic climate would result in the rate of US unemployment exceeding the 25% that was experienced in the 1930s.
Unless the US economic recovery program focusses on creating a sustainable economy not dependent upon the MIMC, the vicious cycle will never end.
Sioux Rose
RAY: I would argue that all those muscles be put to use BUILDING and RECRAFTING technology and redesigning infrastructure rather than figuring out ways how to blow it up and destroy it. Turn the destroyers into builders... the manpower is there, as is the physical training. IF leadership places war/murder first, then all this human waste is used to waste other humans. It could, in contrast, be employed refitting our schools, bridges, train tracks, and as I said, training the ghetto youth who otherwise will head to drugs and live lives of not necessarily quiet desperation.
I believe it is a hoax based on focusing our attention away from the real problem, which as we continuously acknowledge is misleadership, especially attributed to the western countries, misleading us all into global warming.
What happens when snowflakes stick together?...............friends come together and have snow ball fights. :)
Leea
May I ask, what is the real problem?
We, we humans have been our problem, and fortunately for those who embrace it we will also be the solution. As Al notes, it has little or nothing to do with earth survival, or life surviving on the planet, and everything to do with human survival.
Then again, many believe we will need to mutate to survive, who knows?
What happens when snowflakes stick together?...............friends come together and have snow ball fights. :)
Leea
No doubt, but what do you identify as THE basic human trait/failure/shortcoming that attributes more to our problems than any other?
Our ability to deceive, not only others but our selves, this unique human trait a byproduct of our conscious development and exploited as we fight for the ultimate truth, or lie as it may be. This deception or "illusion" as many would call it has been overcome in the past with prayer or meditation, bringing one to a state of reconnected clarity for good decision making based on clarity.
Today prayer and meditation as common practices seem to be quickly falling to the wayside as we rush to do science and technologies bidding. Coupled with the stagnation induced when the powers of spirituality were modified for control and power over the masses pushing the old pure forms underground through thousands of years of patriarchal development.
At the same time an upwelling of new spiritual connection can be seen all around leading again to clear sight. So the ultimate culprit of the problem is a lack of clarity in thinking and the actions it precedes. I think that is what the CD website is all about, those who can see clearly again, sharing that sight which is far from perfected, so we can all start acting in ways that will ultimately save ourselves.
What happens when snowflakes stick together?...............friends come together and have snow ball fights. :)
Leea
I don't know if it is a hoax or not but consider the following comment:
"Our entire approach to the global warming problem is just plain wrong. I believe that the world is heating up (more specifically I believe that scientists can read a thermometer and make a graph) but I'm not so convinced that people are wholly, or even mostly, responsible for the problem.
If people are not causing the problem, approaches based on that assumption are obviously useless.
Let's assume, however, for sake of argument that people are indeed causing the problem and there is absolutely no question about this. The idea that a species that routinely tries to murder each other over skin color and mythology will somehow unify and work together to fight an amorphous, invisible enemy that most human beings have not even heard of is wishful thinking of the first order.
The world is heating up. We may be causing it or we may not. We WILL NOT be able to stop it, at least if the chances of world-wide cooperation among human beings accord with the entire history of our species to date.
Instead of pursuing this Quixotic idiocy of trying to 'stop' global warming, we should be preparing ourselves, our economy and our Republic for the effects and side-effects off climate change. Efforts to forestall a world-wide warming are a waste of resources that should be applied to ensuring that the Republic and as much of the rest of humanity as possible can be saved from the coming disaster.
Besides being a much more practical and realistic way to deal with global warming than is the current nonsense about trying to stem global emmissions by some kind of cosmopolitan effort to regulate industry in a world filled with places where a $2,000 bribe can spare a factory owner $2,000,000 in green upgrades, preparing for, rather than trying to prevent, global warming would also provide the Republic with insurance against other disasters, natural or man-made, should global warming prove to be a paper-tiger. This is both more sensible and would appeal more to conservatives and those, who for whatever reason, question the threat of global warming."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...803318_pf.html
Sioux Rose
WVK: It seems to me those who don't want to own the human component want an excuse to live as carelessly as they have. However, taking your argument into consideration, I think the two approaches are NOT mutually exclusive. In other words, yes, by all means prepare for the fact that waters may rise, that climate cycles may no longer support previous harvests, that world fisheries may collapse, that tropical storms may grow more violent, that rivers may not honor their previous shorelines. AND also cut back on fossil fuel emissions, eat none (or less) meat, use recycled objects (rather than buying new). As in erring on the side of caution. The Indigenous of this land used to sit in council and before making serious determinations they would consider the impacts such decisions would have on future generations... contrast that with today's mega corporations who can take down a forest in a day, kill a river with debris, wipe out fish populations with enormous drift nets. And what is their ethos? Quarterly profits.
Having seen deregulation allow the moneychangers to rape money of its previous worth, now what will they trade against all those loans done on bad paper? Our national parks? The things that can never return in one or many generations? We are watching a comedy of tragic errors in slow motion.
"We WILL NOT be able to stop it, at least if the chances of world-wide cooperation among human beings accord with the entire history of our species to date."
But our species is finally catching on. We are beginning to see world-wide cooperation against the brutal aggressions of the American Empire and its satellite state, Israel. The peoples of the world are witnessing the results of the technology used in our aggressions - depleted uranium, white phosphous and Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME).
From Asia to South America, people see how transnational corporations are destroying their countries. The grab for the world's resources by the American Empire and its allies is being recognized and protested throughout the world. People are coming together. "The entire history of our species to date" has not had the Internet. Many officials may still take $2,000 bribes, but the people are speaking out, and they resent being sold out.
Your comment "preparing for, rather than trying to prevent, global warming" sounds a lot like the attitude of the Empire's medical profession and Big Pharma. There's no money in prevention. Most people need only introduce lifestyle/dietary changes into their lives to see vast improvements. But then, there would be no big bucks for the "experts" and the costly, mostly-needless pills.
Preventing all types of pollution should be our goal, whether or not climate change is caused by humans.
Preparing for climate change is exactly what Corporate America wants - profits before people ...and Al Gore is Corporate America's # 1 supporter.
Initially, efforts will be made while preserving profit. The margin between surviving and not surviving is profit. None of the groups surviving the last climate change, save one, culturally embraced profit. That is the very one which now drives our ecology out of historical, natural perameters. Interesting situation.
Will profit kill us or save us?
What if the whole corporate world could be tricked into providing us everything we need to survive, and all we had to do was let them get filthy rich...
Transportation bill made it through the House - now it goes to the sentate
a link for those who want to contact their senators:
http://t4america.org/
If ever letter writing had a value, now is the time.
Same Gorey story.
Soon we will be forced to act on the fact that the architectural pattern of suburbia (which includes most of our so-called "cities") is unsustainable. This is the first baby step in addressing global heating and the accompanying environmental degradation. Producing "clean cars" temporarily perpetuates the myth of Al Gore and the usual Gang-Green blowhards who's single daily carbon ass-print through jet travel is larger than most people's yearly carbon footprint. "Clean cars," no matter how clean, wantonly promote the far-flung dissipation of all unrenewable resources. The cheaper and cleaner the fuel for cars, the more the built environment sprawls out over vast landscapes, the more demand there is for cars and freeways and the more cars are needed to service the metastasizing design. We once thought fossil fuel energy WAS efficient for cars and that is what produced the energy inefficient city. Further sanitization of "clean cars" means continued waste in building infrastructure that will go on damaging the world until we reverse it or mother earth simply reverses us. Far more energy is lost forever, and far more of the environment is destroyed through trying to maintain scattered small building development than even the compounded transportation waste required to service it. Trying to fix it isn't even a better kind of wrongness. We will condense into sanely built environments by salvaging what we can and abandoning the rest to nature.
The urban planner Kenneth Schneider adds depth to this line of reasoning by saying straightforwardly that dealing with all of the major issues rather than our systemic disease precludes attaining the required results.
"Despite the statements of many urbanists and environmentalists to the contrary, the central issues are not clean air and water, endangered species or environments, more money for housing and urban renewal, or even energy, certainly not in their separate capacities. These issues are relevant, perhaps necessary, but not basic. What is basic is the structure of the human environment, the city. Building a good city - a framework for all separate things to work harmoniously - is essential in order to alleviate each of the separate issues of development. Separate concerns considered separately merely trap us into building an even larger environmental destructiveness."
Yes, cheaper energy creates more plunder in a society where plunder is promoted to serve imperial ambitions. But in a sane society the lower costs are welcomed as an opportunity to decrease the work load and increase non-material pursuits. When will the USA gain some sanity?
Also, suburbia/exurbia are not problematic due to geography but due to their dependence on far-flung power centers, so people are commuting DAILY in their gas-hogs all over the countryside to the "emerald cities". Suburbs/exurbs should become localized, i.e. far-flung dependencies should be severed, and locally owned small scale food/fuel/materials production put in place.
Localism is the answer which enables people to live amid the beauty of nature and still thrive economically/politically. Demand local production, and you will have a strong local economy, and all the benefits of localism, i.e. political/economic self-determination.
"And our national security is endangered by a vicious terrorist network and the complex challenge of ending the war in Iraq honorably while winning the military and political struggle in Afghanistan."
Wow, I did not realize that 1. Terrorists are vicious, thanks for clarifying that Al. 2. The war in Afghanistan has nothing to do with the vicious terrorists war, it is a totally different problem that for lack of a better word we will just call a war on 'struggle'
What happens when snowflakes stick together?...............friends come together and have snow ball fights. :)
Leea
Die Off of 6 Billion People by 2100 ….. (i sent this to Obama website a month or so ago)
“By 2100, the Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million,… “ stated James Lovelock in October of 2007, one of the twentieth century's most influential scientists. (see the whole interview here http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock )
Can human civilization change course?
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England in the 1920’s did not achieve the lifestyle of today’s average American.
They had no major electric appliances, no air conditioning, no heat pumps, no airline travel, no malls, no super markets, no computers, no cell phones or television.
They may have owned an automobile or two. They were royalty, however they lived without the modern luxuries we take for granted every hour of every day.
The Real Problem: Our Industrial and consumer based civilization does not factor in the external costs of our current lifestyle on the health of the biosphere.
If one weighs all the current science on the state of our natural world, there is only one conclusion, that there is no solution to maintaining our current lifestyles as well as a livable biosphere. What is being offered to us by industry, governments, politicians, and even the big environmental groups are false solutions that only postpone our doom by a few years.
Green Cars: A False Solution
The manufacturing of hybrid, electric or hydrogen automobiles has a larger environmental footprint than manufacturing conventional gasoline automobiles because of the toxics produced during the manufacture and recycling of the batteries and electronics.
Real Solution: No New Automobiles
• Moratorium on the manufacturing and sale of new automobiles by…. 2012
• End of manufacturing of new light trucks and passenger vehicles that achieve less than 30 MPG by 2010
• Existing autos must meet strict emission standards and will be maintained with new motors and parts
Liquid Biofuels: a false solution and great threat to all ecosystems and the world’s poor.
• Rainforest and grasslands are being destroyed around the globe to grow bio-fuel crops
• The Forest Service states that 67 million acres of our National Forests are available to produce 21 billion gallons of ethanol per year
• Ethanol creates higher formaldehyde and ozone emissions degrading air quality
• Food shortages and riots around the world are already being caused by turning food crops into ethanol
• Genetically engineered microbes for wood-to-fuel conversion could create catastrophic harm if accidentally released into the natural world
Real Solutions via Biofuels
• Utilization of waste oils to power public transportation and waste collection fleets within cities
• Biofuels to farmers for food production and food transportation only
Real solutions to avoid human die off and biological holocaust:
• A Moratorium on new highway construction
• 80% Reduction of man made CO2 & methane releases by 2020
• Build New Rail transportation infrastructure to replace essential highways and freeways throughout the US
• Retool industries that are destroying the biosphere to manufacture components for a new restoration and renewable energy economy
• Re-localization of food production, as well as the manufacturing of essential goods and services to minimize trucking
• A Moratorium on all new fossil and uranium fueled power plants
• A Moratorium on all new airports and airport expansion
• Military and aerospace industries will be retooled to manufacture windmills, high efficiency appliances and solar electric technologies
• The Military budgets and personnel will be directed to perform toxic site cleanup (here and abroad), windmill and grid installation, restoration on public lands, and basic energy conservation upgrades to every livable shelter
• Mandate zero release of CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs and methyl bromide
• Mandate zero release of toxics and hormone disrupters into the environment via any manufacturing process or product
• Mandate all non-organic products sold will be reusable or 100% recycled by manufacturer
• Mandate the end of industrial grazing, logging, and mining on public lands
This will require a greater economic and social transition than that during World War II.
However, modern lifestyles will be maintained far beyond that of any human before that time.
We must ask ourselves: what is a living biosphere worth?
Is it worth giving up luxuries like airline travel, a new car, a big screen TV, a few meals per week containing meat, driving alone to work, and buying food and goods produced more than 200 miles away? Is maintaining a functioning community and a stable biosphere worth giving up a few luxuries?
In Conclusion, the big question remains even if we can accomplish the measures prescribed above, will this be enough to avoid the tipping point where global warming is unstoppable, toxics in the environment are beyond biological tolerances, and the subsequent collapse of civilization by the latter half of the 21st century?
I do not know that these real solutions will be enough, however “business as usual” and the false solutions being offered up by industry, corporations, politicians, and the big environmental groups is a recipe for disaster.
Sioux Rose
CLEAR CUT: I'm glad you sent the above posting to "the Obama people." You've done your homework. I especially like the part about getting the military to clean up toxic sites. I'd also like to see them get the ghetto kids who are jobless into training programs to rebuild their own neighborhoods.
Many good, solid suggestions. Thanks for posting this.
Thanks for this, clearcut. Most "green" plans always prioritize economics over sustainability, which is why most of your talking points are ignored. There is no magic bullet. Our goal as articulated by our leaders should not be the substitution of one technology for another, or to reduce CO2 etc levels to something more comfortable, our goal should be to almost eliminate Man's environmental footprint on the planet.
Three words, in order of decreasing importance: Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
You make some good points, but the way to slash car use is abolishing the suburban model of development and rebuilding the largely abandoned cnetral districts of our cities and towns.
Cars will always be needed in rural areas. But cities could and should be largely car-free.
Lithium iron phosphate cells are non-toxic and emminently recyclable. And under RoHS directives the electronics contain no lead, cadmium or other toxic metals.
Also, I've never considered many of the things you listed as luxuries - certainly not shopping malls or other suburban crap, and except for outing trips, cars. In the days before cars, cities were laid out so you could walk or take a short trolley ride everywhere you needed to go, much more plesant than driving. I never figured out what's so great about airline travel except the view from a window seat when the weather is clear.
(sorry if I repeated other's comments - this post sat a while before I sent it)
---USAn---
GreenChange.org is telling President Obama and Congress to introduce a moratorium on new coal and nuclear plants. Future generations will thank us for moving from dirty, dangerous fuels to safe, green energy. Find out more at http://tinyurl.com/alp453
Good points clearcut climate.
Its hard to take Gore seriously when he ignores so many clear contributors to the problems--i.e. livestock agriculture, military.
I dont agree with skeptics who seem to believe it is impossible to affect the climate by human activity since human action can affect a river. If we can pollute a river we can mess up the atmosphere.
There is no arrogance in assuming that(the arrogance comes from thinking humans are here to manage Nature.).
Not that i trust scientists.
Part of the problem is looking to technology to solve problems created by technology.
Common sense and wisdom rarely factors in.
Yes, Webber, the attitude in Washington DC (and in corporate boardrooms elsewhere) is that we must control nature for our own needs and benefits. This exclusive right was, after all, given to us by god - dominion over nature is in the bible.
"The problems we face today cannot be solved by the minds that created them."
Albert Einstein
Al Gore has done more to further the corporate control of environmental policies than anyone else on planet earth.
"...we must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our country must simultaneously solve two other worsening crises. Our economy is in its deepest recession since the 1930s. And our national security is endangered by a vicious terrorist network and the complex challenge of ending the war in Iraq honorably while winning the military and political struggle in Afghanistan."
What a mouthful of popular fiction! Where to begin? "Our" civilization? "Our" planet? Who is this "we?" Churchgoing southern aristocrats? The World Bank? America? The world does not belong also to Muslim people? To poor Mexicans? To Hamas and al Qaeda? "Our" world, "our" universe? Show me the deed.
"Our" economy is closer to a true picture, though Al makes the meltdown sound like some kind of virus that comes around every 100 years. With the recession we are experiencing the correct and predictable result of our own irresponsibility and greed, so whereas it is a crisis (Americans deprived of money!) it is also natural and just. Any other outcome would be truly alarming, like Wile E. Coyote remaining suspended in midair in defiance of gravity.
If Al wants to scare himself half to death with paranoid visions of a vicious terrorist network tunneling under western civilization like the Beagle Boys he is welcome to it, although more people died last year of washing machine injuries than jihadist attacks. That Americans go charging off to the four corners of the earth to battle ragged minions of hill people with medieval weapons instead of the things that actually kill us by the thousands - automobiles, cigarettes, sugar and lard - is an embarrassment we are apparently willing to accept.
Only a mind as complex as Al Gore's could wrestle with the challenge of an honorable end to the Iraq war. When a gang of pirates finds itself standing on the deck of somebody else's ship up to their elbows in blood and not even a swag of loot to show for their trouble, do they look for an honorable exit? I don't think so. Probably best to just slink away and hope people forget about it after awhile.
And of course the military and political struggle to defeat and/or win the hearts of Pashtun warlords who play soccer with human heads and have been invaded by experts. We pretty much had that situation under control five years ago at least as far as the city limits of Kabul, whereas today we've expanded our influence to, well, the city limits of Kabul.
Now that we know global warming is irreversible we're off to draw up some guidelines and set some priorities and have a few meetings to put the kibosh on the disappearance of those polar ice caps and stuff that methane back into the permafrost or the mud that used to be permafrost. Now that we know what a futile exercise Iraq was, we can beef up and send a few more battalions of American farm kids into Afghanistan to explain how democracy works. Golly, optimism is infectious isn't it? I'm feeling better already.
thanks for that vox. i needed a good laugh............not that it's a laughing matter.
Subject:
Say Yes to the Green Recovery – Fund the Green Jobs Act
letter to senators for those who want to pitch in
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5379/t/2457/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=980
Thank you Mr. Gore. You have done more to save our earth than perhaps any person alive today.
Again, thank you.
VP Gore is saying most of what needs to be said. In order to maintain credibility and access to MSM, his message is buried in context. Were he to light his hair on fire and run around beating a drum, we would hear no more from him.
He has put before everyone world-wide the piece of information they need to see clearly what we face. That is the IPCC ice core data chart in his movie and book.
If you can't read a chart, find someone who can, get the book and listen.
Then add a few facts about ice shelves, melting, water vapor, tectonic activity from water-mass relocation, the thickness of the atmosphere (half the mass below 18kft), magnetic striping, methane, die-offs (Under a Green Sky), and a few tidbits from the indigenous survivors (Black Elk) of the last ice age. Realize, also, that all that data has been available to those on the inside for over 10 years. And stir.
There is nothing more urgent or necessary than to prepare for the process of climate change which is upon us.
We may be the first serial fecundity of intelligent organic life to have advanced notice of the change by virtue of technology.
This is not a test.
This is the real thing.
We also may be the first serial fecundity of intelligent life to have advanced notice of the change by virtue of technology but because of a willful desire for ignorance end up doing nothing nonetheless.
In which case I think there is an argument to be made against 'intelligence' altogether.
snydly
Right.
Got any ideas on those spikes?
Here's some food for thought. Try the two tests at the bottom of the page.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/faqs-and-myths
If you look at their "experts" site it's pretty thin on the ground. Most of them have no connection to the actual study of climate data. That means they do not really understand climate at a deep level. Which makes me suspicious.
The only "expert" in their list who actually appears to have a climate science background is this guy, Robert Balling:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_C._Balling_Jr
He received funding from the oil industry. this in itself wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the simple fact that one of his funders, Exxon, is known through internal memo's that have come out to actively encourage muddying the waters with unscientific propaganda.
Given his other associations (The Cato institute for example) and his publications it is pretty clear that he is not actually doing any of the science but is taking a more politicized position.
Another One of their "experts" though, Bob Carter, at first glance looks serious.
So I dig a little deeper by looking at sites which actually track sources:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bob_Carter
One can see that this guy is funded by the oil industry and even worse, he actually isn't a climate scientist.
When you look at Bob Carter's web site and his "ten facts" page it is full of the typical lies of omission and shades of mis-information that I see all the time from political schills who actually want to promote an agenda than to merely tell you what the data say and what our best guess as to what it means is.
Classic example of this is his first "fact" which points out, correctly, that climate has always changed and it always will.
This 'fact' suffers from the problem of relevancy and context. For example, the climate of the earth 500 million years ago, just before the Cambrian explosion in speciation, was frigid. The entire planet, even at the equator, was covered in ice.
But all the continents were in the wrong places, the atmosphere composition was different, the ocean currents would have all been different and the rate and amount of volcanic activity would also have been different. Even the sun was cooler by something like a 10% factor than is has been for the past many millions of years.
So what the climate was like 500 million years ago, or indeed even 15 million years ago, is largely irrelevant. None of this is pointed out.
You have to ask why not.
Fact two is almost hilarious. Assuming that the claim isn't a lie (which I'm uncertain about anyway since obstruction is not beyond the author's capability based on fact one) just how stupid is it to worry about the temperature at the location of a weather balloon 20 miles up when it is actually temperatures on the ground that are going to effect human beings, animals, oceans, and most of the planet's ice? And within that 'fact' a temperature INCREASE is even admitted!
Fact 3 is a lie. Isotope concentrations of carbon 14 clearly show that the CO2 in the air today has a significant portion originating from underground that did not exist in the past. Where would all that underground carbon come from? There is one obvious source and the amounts of carbon released from human activity (a number we know) matches the extra amount in the air compared to the past hundreds of thousands of years (another number we know).
That is about as good evidence as you can get. Just claiming these facts don't prove anything while providing no viable alternative explanation isn't very scientific.
I'll stop here but ALL of these 'facts' are obviously various types of propaganda and surely we are smarter than to buy into them.
Every one of the "ten facts" is exactly like this. They all actively hide anything inconvenient.
Very nice work, physicscitizen. Alas, almost all human endeavor is sullied, it would seem, by self interest and the almighty dollar.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
From a Guardian (UK) article titled 'Britain's big polluters accused of abusing EU's carbon trading scheme':
"The EU's emissions trading scheme was set up as a market solution to cut greenhouse gas pollution from industry. Polluters were issued with permits that can be traded between companies and countries as a way of encouraging an overall reduction in carbon output. However, companies are now cashing them in for their own financial benefit." See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/27/industry-abusing-ets-carbon-trading
That's downright horrifying! And shocking! How could they?! Carbon trading is one of the main selling points of Obama's climate change policy, fully supported of course by Mr. Environment himself - Albert "Occidental Petroleum" Gore.
Thankfully, companies here in the U.S. are much more responsible than those in Britain, and we shouldn't have to worry about these very fine American corporations abusing the policy.
There's two basic principles called morality and ethics that we have in great abundance in the good old U.S.A. ...and we can thank our Heavenly Fathers for that!
I presume you are being sarcastic?
If so then I chuckle profusely!
"Moreover, we must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our country must simultaneously solve two other worsening crises."
These three crises, environmental, security, and economic, are all results of elite rule over people. The people place a high value in healthy relations and healthy production, while the elites do not. The term "elite" indicates a sociopathy, or mental/spiritual illness. The people don't want to be ruled by elites but tolerate it in exchange for the opiates the elites dispense. The people are internally conflicted by this unhealthy exchange/association with elites.
To end the conflict the people have to reject the opiates. For example, when a parent lectures a teenager on recreational drugs the teenager can take the parent to task on the McMansion and the rest of the material addictions that fuel the elites' crises/catastrophes.
After the people reject the opiates they will naturally embrace self-rule and secure healthy GLOBAL relations and healthy LOCAL production. Pseudo-left elites such as Gore and O'Bama will not change the status quo until they enlighten/empower the people to reject the opiates and embrace their true interests.
rt, this is a pretty accurate take on humanity!
Have you read "Blessed Unrest" by Paul Hawken?
I must say that I am scared to say anything critical about Al Gore on the CD site. My criticisms of the Democrats earned me previously a DENIAL OF ACCESS message (as it has many others) every time I tried to access CD articles, and I was quite surprised to see that once again my access mysteriously reappeared! I hope that CD is reversing itself from this policy of censoring dissent from its pages? If so, that is a quite welcome reversal of policy and the responsible thing to do. It is good to be back if only ever so briefly?
Without knowing further facts about your denial of access I will not venture an opinion one way or the other.
Merely being critical of a public figure is, I am pretty sure, unlikely to cause this.
After all, you will find fewer groups more critical of Obama than on here!
further, with regard to climate change in general I've managed to get into some really serious debates with some very hard-core deniers on here. People who not only refuse to see the facts on the ground (not an uncommon problem) but also actively lie.
For example, continuing to post and to insist that there is a global cooling trend despite being shown on 3 separate occasions the actual data showing that there is indeed a warming trend instead. I believe this kind of behavior is rightly labeled 'lying' and the person who engages in it a 'liar'.
And yet, such people are allowed to continue to post.
Indeed, despite my own frustration at the kind of personality that not only merely refuses to adjust their position based on evidence and my anger at those who actively lie, I would STILL be upset with CD if I thought such people were being banned merely because they were willfully ignorant of facts or even if they are actively spreading lies. It is, after all, an important skill for everyone ELSE to be able to learn to distinguish the truth from Propaganda and lies and it is also an important skill to learn to check up on other sources claims and judge their relative merits.
So given my past experience on here, it would seem to me that the only thing left is just complete needless abuse and an utterly disrespectful attitude towards others on this site?
I even find this hard to believe given what I've seen some people post on here, even if you look at when the progressives themselves disagree!
So at the end of all this I get to the chase. You've peaked my curiosity. What kind of thing could possibly earn you DENIAL OF ACCESS (in general terms...I don't want you banned AGAIN!)?
I happened to be banned (not authorized to comment) for one day last week. I sent an e-mail to the editor and I was immediately put back into the "good graces" of CD. At the time, I was having a bit of a back and forth debate with a certain individual who accused me of racism (which was ridiculous). This may or may not have been the reason for my overnight ban.
To the right of 'reply' is 'report this comment'. It's possible that when someone complains about a particular comment, the commenter is cut off, until a review by a CD staff member. I'm just guessing here. It would be nice to have a definitive answer.
I've had it worse. Apparently, I am permanently banned from posting articles or comments on my nearest "very progressive" indymedia news site. How bad is that?! I've heard from others about their problems with indymedia, and it's absolutely sad!
Basically, if one disagrees with the prevailing, politically-correct views of the indy volunteer who is working at the time, that person is screwed, and unable to reply to ANYTHING! It's even worse for me because I've tried to post several times over the past 6 months and nothing gets through. A permanent ban.
But that's indymedia and this is Common Dreams, and from my experience so far, the folks monitoring these comments have been very fair.
BTW, yes, I was being sarcastic a little further down!
Yes my own experience reflects your fairness comment.
I mean seriously, look at some of the blatantly offensive material some of the supporters of Israel put up every time they murder a few hundred more women and children.
And that stuff is allowed on!
A few annoying posts by people who do not like what science has to say just pales in comparison!
G'morning.
That war stuff is allowed on because it is part of "business-as-usual".
Climate change info, esp when it hits close to the reality of the situation, is too hot to handle.
For instance, let's try a zinger...
The tipping pt referred to is when events and observations switch from linear, black and white, to non-linear, full technicolor. To whit: linear---temp increases, ice caps melt, oceans rise, havoc ensues; non-linear---temp increases, ice caps melt, then it goes mechanical... water mass shifts from poles to equator, planetary angular momentum changes inciting sudden, on-going tectonic activity (see today's warning on Alaskan volcano, and other USGS data) which flash-heats oceans, super charging the atmosphere with the energy and water vapor sufficient to rapidly relocate water mass to the poles via grand storm systems which cover the surface down to 30N with lots of ice. Ocean level recedes (after the initial tsunamis). Havoc ensues.
Pure Hollywood, right?
But, then, the question becomes, "What must we do?".
First, a rational society would shut down all nuclear power stations, sequester and disperse all radio-active material everywhere. Why? Such a sudden thick cover of ice would catch some power plants and storage sites, improperly shut down and inaccessible. These would be crushed, ground up by glaciers and the resulting creation of a critical mass melt-down spewing radio-active steam out of ice-chimneys into the bio-sphere becomes a measurable threat to life on this planet.
Such preparation is not business-as-usual.
So, let's see what happens...
There is quite a bit of stuff in your 'zinger' that is completely ridiculous.
It bases everything upon a mass shift of water from the melting ice at the poles to the equator. This does not happen. The water evenly distributes along a surface of equal potential energy. For a spinning body that surface is an oblate spheroid...but that's ALREADY the shape of the earth.
There is no shift in mass if the north pole melts, there is certainly some if the Antarctic ice cap melts since that shifts water from land to the sea. But it will not all go to the equator...not even most of it...It cannot. that doesn't take climate scientist to figure out, that's just simple 1st year physics and conservation of energy.
Furthermore the whole mass of the earth is very much larger than the differential mass of the portion of the southern ice cap that would melt. and that enourmous mass is spinning. And the overall mass hasn't changed at all only a very slight re-distribution. The conservation of angular momentum will tend to want to keep the earth's axis pointed right where it is and naturally precessing the way it always has for a very very long time in the future.
In addition the earth is lucky to have a substantial moon. The combined angular momentum of that system is also conserved. The presence of our moon has a highly stabilizing effect on our planet's axis of rotation. There is no evidence that the axis of rotation has EVER changed significantly in the past....unlike the planet Mars which seems to have an axis that shifts from zero degrees to something like 30 degrees with respect to it's ecliptic plane on many million year time scales.
The rest of your argument is predicated on this improbability (so improbable in fact, because it comes dangerously close to violating fundamental physical laws, that I'd come close to calling it impossible) so I toss the rest away.
HOWEVER! We are talking about whether you will be banned.
I will be surprised if this alone will do it.
I think you would need to commit a far more serious offense. Like Spamming the site for example...a rather childish and foolish thing to do which will certainly convince no one of anything.
I cannot see any reason why such statements above would cause you to be banned at all. It must be some other reason, or it could be someone who wrote in to complain about you. If that's the case it comes down to a "he said - she said" argument. Were you being excessively annoying and out of line? Or was the complainer being childish and unnecessarily censorious (not sure if that's a word...but it's what I mean). Or did simply encounter a rogue monitor? Hard to say.
snydly
Thanks for your well-considered feedback. Always appreciated.
Have you checked the USGS.gov site lately?
And, speaking of the moon---that would be a good place to plant a time capsule describing our civilization. Perhaps at center perihelion, marked with a mirror that is protected by glass plates held on by slowly decomposing studs which would reveal a dust-free reflection about 90ky from now...(THAT might get me a seat on the group W bench).
Do you have any theory that would account for the spikes and their defeat/reversals shown at temp/CO2 peaks on the IPCC chart in Al's book?
Must go. Hair on fire...
This is a bit much, but I caught the daily show last night and may as well work this idea a little.
To clarify the above scenario...
Only land-borne ice melt would change location, as you recognize. I have read that islanders near the equator have noticed their sea levels rising a bit more than at other places in higher latitudes.
I surmise not that there would be any shift in the AXIS of the planet, but in the angular momentum, which I understand to be what we witness when a skater does one of those arms-out/arms-in spins...the axis stays the same, but the speed changes. It was recently reported that atomic clocks had to be reset because the earth's rotation had slowed some tiny bit. Also, the moon's gravitational pull could be brought into play. Mass is mass, and it changes the dance, even if just a little.
Land unburdened of an ice load will rise a bit, adding to the gestalt.
Now, to the SPIKES on the chart. (All assuming the chart has been well vetted) It will be hard w/o one to look at, but a few general observations can be made. Over the last 650ky the chart shows six ice age cycles (big ice ages, as opposed to "Little Ice Age"), each of about 100ky. Any spike on any chart connotes that everything is going along pretty much as normal---until it isn't. The steepness of a rise or fall also tells a story. The (last 3 cleanly depicted) spikes on the IPCC chart are characterized by a rapid rise of temp deviation from mean planetary temp 58F over a period of about 10ky. Curiously, we are at the top of a rising line at about the level that previous spike reversals have occurred. Looks like we are in sync with a natural cycle and driving it dangerously out of natural limits by our poor choice of fuels (note the CO2 levels).
A spike defeat /reversal is, then, a sudden change, relative to the time scale of the chart. Over the last few years, nearly every time a scientist has said something about "when", they shave it closer to the present. But there are other ways to tell "when".
(counting words on the post---cont'd...)
to continue...
In order to harvest ice core data for a continuous time line over the last 650ky, each of these reversals must have occurred BEFORE much ice melted off the areas they drilled. Yes? So, if the IPCC scientists were accurate in their analyses, yr by yr, or decade by decade, we need only observe the rate of melting/accrual on Greenland and Antarctica to get an idea of how close we are to a reversal. National Geographic recently had an article on the melting, rivers and "moulins", and the lubrication of the land mass under the ice of G-land. Gore also shows satellite pix of the reduction of ice cover over the last decades. It's a clue.
Another characteristic of the spikes is that the temp dev level reverses, yes, but doesn't immediately go to its lowest level. The planetary temp 100 yrs before the reversal is about the same as the temp after the reversal. What could do that?
What could provide the energy to suddenly defeat and reverse a spike, and then effect a more or less stair-step decrease of temp over the next 70ky? When does the ice of an Ice Age form? When do the glaciers get thick enough to descend from the polar lats to the mid lats when they then stop and melt back? If the change was gradual, wouldn't the top of the temp range be rounded like a sine wave, rather than a spike?
So, I figure that a sudden change requires a burst of energy that will kick start whatever mechanism moves water mass from the oceans back to the poles. Could be a transient burp of energy from the sun at 100ky intervals. But, more likely, I think, it would come from undersea volcanism and magma flow due to the movement of the earth's tectonic plates. We all know that over geologic time, these plates have moved a lot. They move a little each day, month, year. Reference: "An Inconv Truth", magnetic striping along the mid-Atlantic Ridge, and USGS.gov/earthquake hazards data. The fault lines are starting to pop.
Gore and others give us most of the clues we need, they just don't blurt it all out like this. They can't, really, and still expect to be listened to, I suppose.
If I follow this scenario logically, I must also say that a rapid replacement of water to the poles would leave the oceans lower, not higher. Which, of course, would not decrease the seriousness of the situation one bit.
We are all children of survivors of the past ice ages. What we risk by wanton disregard for natural ecological balance is, in fact, the very existance of the human race and most of the other creatures as well. We risk screwing up a perfectly natural, if severe, survivable cycle, and making it into a cycle outside of historical limits that will kill us off.
So. There's no time to diddle around. The last 2 degrees of cushion that is supposed to give us a hundred years to fix things up will be supplied to the biosphere by the magma of the earth itself, and suddenly. We must go cold turkey on hydro-carbons and sequester the nukes now. We must go 1880's, but with solar and wind. We must organize locally and regionally for survival...
oops---there goes my hair again....
Have a nice weekend.