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Glued to The Weather Channel While the World Burns
Following the weather is beginning to feel like revisiting the Biblical plagues. Tornadoes rip through Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma--even Massachusetts. A million acres burn in Texas wildfires. The Army Corps of Engineers floods 135,000 acres of farmland and three million acres of bayou country to save Memphis and New Orleans. Earlier in the past year, a 2,000-mile storm dumped near-record snow from Texas to Maine, a fifth of Pakistan flooded, fires made Moscow's air nearly unbreathable, and drought devastated China's wheat crop. You'd think we'd suspect something's grievously wrong.
A wildfire sweeps over Alpine, Arizona, burning 120,600 acres by Saturday.
But media coverage rarely connects the unfolding cataclysms with the global climate change that fuels them. We can't guarantee that any specific disaster is caused by our warming atmosphere. The links are delayed and diffuse. But considered together, the escalating floods, droughts, tornadoes, and hurricanes fit all the predicted models. So do the extreme snowfalls and ice storms, as our heated atmosphere carries more water vapor. So why deem them isolated acts of God--instead of urgent warnings to change our course?
Scientists are more certain than ever, from the National Academy of Science and its counterparts in every other country to such "radical groups" as the American Chemical Society and American Statistical Society. But the media has buried their voices, giving near-equal "point/counterpoint" credence to a handful of deniers promoted by Exxon, the coal companies and the Koch brothers. Fox News's managing editor even prohibited any reporting on global climate change that didn't immediately then question the overwhelming scientific consensus. The escalating disasters dominate the news, but stripped of context. We're given no perspective to reflect on their likely root causes.
Meanwhile, leading Republicans who once acknowledged the need to act, like Tim Pawlenty, disavow their previous stands like sinners begging forgiveness. A Tea Party Congress insists that they know better than do all the world's scientists, dismissing decades of meticulous research as Ivory Tower elitism. Even Obama has fallen largely silent, as if he can't afford an honest discussion.
As a result, too many Americans still don't know what to believe. We can't see, smell or taste the core emissions that create climate change. The industrial processes that create the crisis are so familiar we don't even question them, no more than the air that we breathe. And if we're not getting hammered by the weather, the world still seems normal, particularly on a lovely summer day. Plus we're told that in the current economic crisis we can't afford even to think about climate change or any other urgent environmental issue, even though the technologies that provide the necessary alternatives are precisely those our country will need to compete economically. Add in a culture of overload and distraction, and it's easy to retreat into denial or self-defeating resignation. It's as if half our population was diagnosed with life-threatening but treatable cancer--visited the world's leading medical centers to confirm it--and then decided instead to heed forwarded emails that assure them that they can freely ignore the counsel of the doctors and simply do nothing.
The antidote to denial and the forces that promote it is courage. And as Egypt and Tunisia remind us, courage is contagious. We need to act and speak out in every conceivable way, and demand that our leaders do the same. We need to engage new allies, like religious evangelicals who've recently spoken out to defend "God's creation," from best-selling minister Rick Warren to highly conservative organizations like the Christian Coalition. We need to work with labor activists who link this ultimate issue with the renewal of American jobs. A recent BlueGreen Alliance conference, for instance, brought together leaders of major unions like the United Steel Workers, SEIU, Communications Workers of America, United Auto Workers, Laborers' International, and American Federation of Teachers, with environmental groups like the Sierra Club, National Resource Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation and Union of Concerned Scientists, all speaking about the need to invest in an economy where both ordinary workers and the planet are respected. We need to join with these allies and others to voice our outrage at those risking our common future for greed. We need to find creative ways to do this until America's political climate comes to grips with the changing climate of the earth. Here's hoping the mounting disasters will finally teach us to turn off The Weather Channel and begin taking action.
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75 Comments so far
Show All"We" need Rick Warren and his ilk like we need a collective sore ass. For every Evangelical who speaks about protecting their deity's creation, there are 100 who think the climate change-induced storms and droughts are warnings from that deity. I know several people, otherwise appearing to be rational, who believe the weather extremes are signs of the coming apocalypse. These people, and millions of others, are looking at the lowered crossing gates from the middle of the tracks. They aren't watching for the train.
I am with you.
I am a little more concerned that China's experiments to end their drought may be causing disruptions.
China did their cloud seeding numerous times prior to the Olympics and California saw thunderstorms that created wildfires way earlier than normal. Today we in California are experiencing the longest spring rains we've seen in a long time. Maybe it has nothing to do with it. maybe it does. I have no confidence that any independent scientists are even investigating. Why should they. China is only operating in a totally free market mode of behavior. They have the money they can do as they like as long as it's in the interest of the "markets".
Seed those clouds, you can always blame it on global warming or whatever the latest spin is. Rick Warren I am sure would say it's end times and he alone can grant you a ticket to everlasting life. Sorry if I don't wish to join him with his Hawaiian shirts in the hereafter. My idea of heaven doesn't include him or his followers.
But today California may also be absorbing nuclear pollution from Japan. But hey we have to focus on getting Gadafhi out. Japan is not a priority as far as the market is considered. They've already adjusted their market formulas to profit from the plight of Japan. Their main interest is controlling the Middle East.
Even Obama has fallen silent? Is this implying that Obama is some sort of force for rationality about global warming? The man who went to Copenhagen in 2010 specifically to derail any plan that would curb global warming?
Even Al Gore, who tells us that he has been worried about global warming since the 70s, who travels the world lecturing and won awards for the movie about global warming - even Gore, who led the US delegation to the Kyoto accords in 96, derailed the Kyoto accords on behalf of the oil companies. This was his chance to actually make a difference, to actually commit the US to combating that which he tells us is his life work. And he went with the oil companies instead.
Knowledge is unable to compete against corporations and their profits. I think that McKibben is right and it's time for direct action.
New U.S.-Funded Mexican Environmental Program Slated for Fall -- Project Will 'Fill Gaps," Not Duplicate, Seven Other Programs
http://www.tradeaidmonitor.com/2011/06/new-us-funded-mexican-environmental-program-slated-for-fall-project-will-fill-gaps-not-duplicate-sev.html
[snip]
The endeavor, which is known as the Mexico Low Emissions Development, or MLED, program, is being seen as the “cornerstone” of the Obama Administration’s “global climate change” (GCC) policy for Mexico.
Note: Obama, Policy, Mexico??????
Al Gore like Obama is a media invention. Right now he's only interested in building the wealth of the Gore family. And he's made bundle. Even though carbon offsets have not officially be deemed a new market, he's already profitted though them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html
The world hasn't even been able to implement the derailed Kyoto accords.
Speaking of the Weather Channel, I've watched a good bit of it over the past several months, following the destruction of tornadoes and storms, and not once have I ever heard the words "global warming", "climate change" or anything similar. It's as if no one on the Weather Channel has ever heard of the concept. They don't dismiss it, Tea Party style, as a liberal/leftist hoax, they simply ignore the whole idea. It's amazing.
I have heard that many meteorologists "don't believe in" AGW, unlike virtually every climatologist on Earth, so that may account for the obvious whitewashing of the issue. Then again, it's probably the corporate ownership of Weather Channel that's behind the coverup. All part of the grand conspiracy in corporate media to pretend there's no such thing as human-generated global warming. How else can corporate profits be protected?
Having being the victim of many failed picnics due to the inaccurate predictions of the weathermen over the last 4 decades, I'm amazed that anyone would listen to them when they talk about global warming; or anything else for that matter, including the chance of rain tomorrow.
EPHRAIM: Thank you for pointing this outrage out! The cowardice is striking!
With truth collectively received (and embraced) the will would be in place to force lifestyle changes, starting from the top echelons, all the way down the line.
I attended a spiritual event several years ago and the speaker said: "Many want oblivion, an end to it all."
When I heard those words I obtained a new understanding of the belief in End Times. Rather than throw the gift of life back in Creator's face, an ideology was created that purports that it is God's idea that creation come to an end. This sleight of ideological hand leads many to cling to states of suspension (a form of learned helplnessness), instead of rousing the passion for actions & policies that would act to safeguard life's continuity.
Another intimation that seems apt to me is that the CIA (or another covert military organ) infiltrated the Christian Evangelical movement. It's now a known fact that Christian ministers evangelize the Air Force, that Christian insignia are found on weaponry, that amoral sloths like Erik Prince identify with Christianity yet find no problem killing the (imagined) enemy, and for profit, no less! By leading a flock of millions to believe that End Times qualifies as Creator's will, the military's own M.A.D. receives a powerful reinforcement. This time, it's God's war, rather than proof of the folly of man that calls for the spectacles (and celebrations) of massive destruction.
What's been done, and continues to be done, in Creator's name, qualifies as The Sin to end all sins.
Those Weather Channel experts who MUST see what's going on and KNOW the truth, are like persons serving in media who lie the nation into war, or those in war who "just follow orders."
What a time to play deaf, dumb, and blind to the Truth so needed to Set Them Free. It's a regular Jim Jones party, and everyone is invited!
If the truth was truly collectively embraced, what need would there be to "force lifestyle changes"?
Wouldn't people do it voluntarily?
Good comment. I was watching CNN during the massive tornados last week and Wolfe asked, what in the world is going on with this weather? But he is a puppet of the FMM, and even though he knew the answer he wouldn't say it.
That should be a new bumper sticker.
The weather channel's founder is a denialist of the 1st order, http://www.uscentrist.org/about/issues/environment/john_coleman. Thus TWC has a conflicting relationship to a topic that is now only mentioned euphemistically. For example, after the second large tornado outbreak that included the assault on Joplin, two of TWC's Storm Tracker meterologists made a veiled reference in their conversation to the increases in incidents and damage that "will" come in the "future," and that was the only reference I heard over several days to the fact of Global Warming. I seldom watch TWC anymore as it's an almost useless tool given my locale.
John Coleman is still alive? He must be closing in on 100. During the period of my childhood living in the Chicago area, he was the stooge weatherman on ABC-7. All clown, nothing professional. He belongs with Fahey Flynn.
sLiMsHaDy:
Yes. John Coleman is still alive and, unfortunately, still playing the "stooge weatherman" at one of our local cable stations here in San Diego: KUSI .... I don't watch; local "news" makes my skin crawl. I decided long ago there is absolutely nothing on local "news" I need to know. In fact, I think watching it only makes us dumber. The continuing presence of bloviating buffoons like John Coleman only furthers this belief.
The Weather Channel sensationalizes weather, makes reporting and filming events entertaining. "The Worst of Nature. The Best of Man." What crap!!!!
I dipped into the future, as far as human eyes could see
And saw the chief forcaster, dead as any many can be
Dead and damed and shut in hades, as a lier from his birth
with a record of unreason, seldom parrallelled on earth
As I watched he raised him solemly, that incandescent youth
from the coals he had chosen, o'r the proprieties of truth
He slowly looked about him, then above him, then he wrote
on a slab of thin asbestos, that I venture here to quote
For I read it in the rose light of that everlasting glow
Cloudy, with variable winds, chance of showers, cooler, Snow.
A. Bierce.
Phili: I like it! But allow me to recommend a few corrections.
It is not lier, but liar. And rather than parrallelled, it would be paralleled.
Also, in the 2nd line, did you mean "dead as any man can be"? You wrote, "many can be."
Hades would require a capital letter, as it is a place.
Also. solemly should be solemnly.
The last line is great...
Sorry Sue, In a rush. Should have looked at the book, not my untidy memory.
"Is there a mandatory-nonsense pterodactyl that swoops down to eviscerate writers who neglect to say it?" That was funny, scribe.
The waffle words are part of the practice of language that they teach in research classes. Since we are not talking about a "single weather event", the qualification is quite unnecessary.
from the article:
~ As a result, too many Americans still don't know what to believe. We can't see, smell or taste the core emissions that create climate change. The industrial processes that create the crisis are so familiar we don't even question them, no more than the air that we breathe. And if we're not getting hammered by the weather, the world still seems normal, particularly on a lovely summer day. Plus we're told that in the current economic crisis we can't afford even to think about climate change or any other urgent environmental issue, even though the technologies that provide the necessary alternatives are precisely those our country will need to compete economically. Add in a culture of overload and distraction, and it's easy to retreat into denial or self-defeating resignation. It's as if half our population was diagnosed with life-threatening but treatable cancer--visited the world's leading medical centers to confirm it--and then decided instead to heed forwarded emails that assure them that they can freely ignore the counsel of the doctors and simply do nothing. ~
Mr. Loeb: how can you construct such a paragraph?
you chastise 'Americans' for not questioning the industrial processes creating the 'climate change' crisis without, yourself, ever addressing the reason for the industrial processes (notice 'climate' is never connected to 'chemical', although chemical damage is the direct result of industrial processes, and at least as important as temperature changes, as both are integral to our functional environment), nor the tie between the economic crisis, the climate\chemical crisis, and the ownership of property...
obviously, it is the murder and enslaving of indigenous peoples, the stealing of their land and resources, and the subsequent reselling of such over long terms with accruing interest to the remaining rabble that creates the need for human work to pay the human bills that drive the economic engine that kills the living world...
our economic systems are killing our ecologic systems and only toxicity and death lie ahead, unless we abanodon the notion of paying for the necessities the living world has to offer...
while we still have a living world...
Hello dubet, I think you'll find this of interest, http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-06-04/dear-stephen-king-open-letter-one-american-who-really-could-scare-rest-us-action
hey, karlof1!
excellent article! thanks for the link...
dubet, well said! From "obviously" to "the living world", it's 55 words (I counted!), and that's about the most concise description of present-day reality AND history that I've come across. Of course, the history started in the "Old World" and the various machinations and manipulations are still ongoing.
hey, Alcyon!
in a strange way, the legitimacy of the indigenous position as massacre victim blinds those coming to these shores afterward to a simple fact: those not involved in the intial wave of killing and land theft, those not members of the resulting wealthy class, are, themselves, but victims of those same wealthy murderers and thieves...
you and I, as individuals, were slaughtered and displaced in advance, having been placed into the 'future purchaser' category...note how often these stolen lands and fortunes are handed down through generations...
in other words, many people can see the wrongness of the way those living in the pre-Columbus Americas were treated by those arriving...
what many cannot see is that they, themselves, are victims of the same treatment, or will be...
it is simply a matter of subtlety...
>>dubet: "what many cannot see is that they, themselves, are victims of the same treatment, or will be..."<<
All the more reason to not take the comforts and "progress" for granted as something natural or "earned". Most of us "earn" by basically working for the conquerors in one way or the other. All the more reason to take only what's needed for a basic, healthy life from nature and leave the rest be. And to work towards such a society.
Yes, many who arrived in the "New World" were clearly victims themselves, but that did not stop them from participating in the victimizing of the natives or in benefiting from the conquests, totally disregarding the history. I am one of those that harps on this part of history only because I see that to ignore it would lead to wrong lessons and wrong conclusions, and therefore wrong prescriptions for the future.
yes, this is the most uncomfortable aspect of humanity to face...
even murderers and thieves, while deplorable, have the gumption to do their own dirty work...
one of the primary reasons (the most primary being to preserve the living planet) we must rebel is to clear the collective conscience of this well-deserved guilt...
we have been living vicariously for far too long, willingly paying the violent, rather than confronting them, to shelter and comfort us at the ongoing expense of others and the world, and must, for our own psychological well-being, reclaim our inherent rights and responsibilities for this world, and all living upon...
hardly less than the murderer is the cheerleader for one...
and somewhere in between the murderer and the cheerleader is the drone pilot...
despicable...
That was a perceptive (and courageous?) post, dubet. Because it takes courage to face up to our karma, even fractional karma. Because fractions can add up.
>>From the article: "The antidote to denial and the forces that promote it is courage. And as Egypt and Tunisia remind us, courage is contagious."<<
Well, I'm not sure about that in certain contexts. Lately I'm watching all the craze over the NHL Stanley Cup finals and the clamor for "acquiring" NHL teams by various Canadian cities, by buying them from US cities that cannot afford them anymore! Do these people really realize how much of their energy they are throwing away at these spectacles? Not to mention, real, hard cash? And all for what?
I've been saying (probably ad nauseam) that it's time to end wasteful amusement activities that use up a lot of energy and resources. Besides, these are an integral part of the capitalist system, and boycotting them can be done by all, without even breaking a sweat. It's way past time for people to wean themselves away from such addictions that are carefully cultivated and maintained by the capitalist system and are made to appear as part of the "culture" and "tradition".
If you ever read up on the formation of teams and leagues, you can see clearly that it's mostly about money. When the same tactics are applied in countries like Russia and India where new teams and leagues are formed and new loyalties are cultivated almost overnight, it's almost comical to watch the people cheering for their "local" team. But then, it's because it's still new and it's easy to spot the businessmen's con game.
And yet, I would not dare to walk into the middle of a cheering (or should I say, "bloodthirsty") crowd and tell them that their "passion" is contributing to the overall destruction. What would courage accomplish in such a situation? Not much, other than getting booed out, if not beaten up.
good morning, Alcyon!
funny you should mention pro sports...I have had a recent life change, so spent a few days with my Mom, who I haven't seen regularly for too long...
she is still a devout Mariner fan, while I gave up when they traded the greats from the 95 team, and professional Teflon Slade Gorton forced the new stadium through, even against an initial No vote by the people...
the great Sonics team that put the fear into the incredible Michael Jordan and Da Bulls was also splintered...
I watched the recent Mariner-Yankee series, and the Mariners pitched well, taking 2 of 3...
once in my new place, however, I gladly abandoned them to their fate, again...
If the guy who wants to own a McDonald's can come up with his own financing for the building, why can't the guy that wants the basketball franchise do the same?
If Seattle is an example, it is because corrupt politicians like Gorton work it so the franchise owner doesn't have to pay...they extort the community...
That needs to remain front and center...
I have enjoyed this exchange...thank you...
ALCYON: Beyond the money (i.e. profit to a few), I'd say what's really going on is conditioning.
For 2 years I've made the case that sports are the new opiate of the people; and that the collective loss of testosterone to something as unimportant as who gets the ball (and/or plays publicly with balls) deflects that same amount (which law of thermodynamics would this process qualify as?) from causes that hold MEANING!
When I visit the Florida Keys and watch all the strong men sitting around watching football, or drinking beer after beer as if LIFE were a spectator sport, I can't help but note how sports have played a major role in DISEMPOWERING the population. It's so clear to me that the passion that should be directed at things like preparing for climate change, or demanding an end to the make-war state, instead become diffused into the all important Game. And men talk about the sports scores and averages as if these dialects granted them membership in desirable fraternities.
"Hey? Did you see the game last night?'
"How about that .... (fill in the blanks) in the .... round, inning, quarter," or whatever.
When religion didn't manage to control everyone, major sporting events (and all that beer on tap!) came in to fill the gap!
And Dubet, maybe I misread your post, but it seems to be thanking the troops for protecting our freedoms? Is that what you were saying? Or was the comment directed at the troops going after things like oil, to make the world "safe" for consumer shopping?
Yes, cheering for a commercial sports team imagining it's the "local" team does dis-empower people. But try telling that to the "fans". That is the scary part - they willingly give up the power, turn the other way, so to speak, when corporations and politicians move their agenda forward, relentlessly, in broad daylight. So many little (and big) things get done that undermine democracy (or whatever little is left of it) and set up economic and financial traps, while millions of people are distracted by one thing or the other. This is why I tend to challenge those who insist on changing the system first to face up to reality: who is going to change the system when so many are still caught up in various distractions?
Pale Face Fires Me Up empirePie June 6th, 2011
pale face fires fire me up
the opportunity cost
is a hatchet in the woods
without all the goods
a selective gene for greed
temple turning is the need
for the nest blest Palin crew
praying for the rapture
and more oil fields to capture
while we defile our spaceship home
with broken hand mirrors
the te that don’t go with the se
or the le with the la
so sing a pale face Palin tune
don’t forget to listen to the loon
The climate change point isn't that there's a tropical storm forming tomorrow. The point is that every single year in June, there's a tropical storm, and rarely in May these days, and tropical storms used to wait until July to form. Hurricane season starts on June 1 because the National Weather Service once believed that no storm could possibly form before June 1, but in practice that standard has changed. The sea surface off the coast of southern Mexico is at 86 degrees F. in early June and the storms are popping.
There have already been 4 tropical cyclones in the Western Pacific, the latest of which was a massive super typhoon with wind gusts well over 180MPH that barely missed the Philippines and Taiwan. An average year sees just under 90 tropical storms globally, with just over 20 becoming cat3 or larger, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone
Yes Karlof ,,,, And weather forcasters have predicted the 2011 Atlantic Hurricane season will be the worst on record, with more than (twice) the number of (major) hurricanes which normally occur... Hope none hit the Gulf and stir up BPs "vanished" oil mess.
You wrote, > ("CD has been reprinting almost nothing but garbage lately.")
I suppose that opinion depends upon your personal tastes. Since youi apparently read the CD articles you must appreciate "garbage", as you describe it.
Personally I have found no better news website and learn a lot form the articles and the many excellent comments most post here. I don't agree with all of the authors,,, but who does?
My point is bloodmeridian,
you wrote (most) of the recent CD articles are garbage. I disagreed with you and I still do and no one pays me to offer my opinions here.
Who pays you to disrupt CD threads? . If you don't like it here why are you here? Those are questions btw and no reply is necessary, suit yourself however.
The same (credentials) you have,,, my opinion. I disagree with yours. I enjoy CD, you don't, suit yourslf. And I have the same option to comment here as you do.
My question was fair... If you don't like it here; why are you here?
From the article:
."A million acres burn in Texas wildfires"... Don't forget Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. In the southwest we are sitting on powder kegs of dried out grasslands and oak forests. We haven't seen a clear sky for weeks and we had zero rain last winter when we should have had several inches. The rain fell on the northern US states in (record setting amounts) and that hasn't ceased.
World wide climate change began in ernest last year with Russia having record setting high temperatures 30+ degrees above normal for nearly 90 straight days, over 800 forest fires and loss of their wheat crop which is a vital food staple for many millions in many other countries. The Russia disaster is just one example of many.
Some here spoke of (Al Gore)... Al Gore is not a scientist, he's a politician and apparantly doesn't do as he suggests we should all do to reduce our individual carbon footprints... Hoesomeever; Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth was spot on... Gore garnered his information for that very educational film from some of the most highly qualified scientists on the planet and what he said would happen if we didn't reduce Co2 emissions is happening, exactlly as he stated would happen. Only it is happening a hell of a lot sooner and faster than he or any scientists had predicted.
I don't like him either but that is not relevant... Gore was right, his warnings are now being largely ignored and beause he is a democrat the repblicans have turned global warming and climate change into a friggin political football game.
And of course big business doesn't want to stop selling coal, natural gas and oil so they pay million$ to public relations firms that hire professional writers who shill for them and they have managed to create doubt with the majority of Americans and our 535 DC elected... And we have the "Christian" Tea Party fuckups raising Hell. They mostly are as Christian as Jim and Tammy Baker.
And the Weather Channe? __ That's where I see the best news and it ain't all that great. And then we have the TV and radio weatherman, _ Anthony Watts_ with his website Wattsupwiththat, which has very well written articles that sound reasonable to many, but are outright lies about the Global Warming issue.
What occurred in Russia and Siberia last summer may occur any place on the planet this year, or next, or any time from now on. Already temps in most areas of the US are record breaking highs this month, not in south eastern Arizona. We are wearing light jackets and sweaters in the morning and evening. That's not close to normal. And no rain, we have millions of old oak trees dying all over the state, or on fire.
It has just begun, so be prepared for some very, very nasty days, weeks and months.
Thank you, Wayne. The climate deniers want the issue to be about how Al Gore lives, or that some sharks on Wall Street will find ways to profit from trading carbon credits, as if the greed of a few warrants negation of the ominous patterns at hand.
It's been unbearably hot here the last few days after a really cool spring. I brace myself knowing it won't cool for months. Imagine the realization that it may not cool at all, or not by the temperature differentials we're accustomed to? And beyond our human comfort zone, what of the plant life that has been patiently formulated over eons to adjust to specific rainfall patterns and temperature variants? If that goes, so do the animals that feed on it. And with much of the seas already dead zones, empty of fish, or toxic, that doesn't leave much--apart from Soylent Green--on the proverbial menu.
It's like watching a mass suicide in slow motion... even the screams don't appear to translate to those closest to the "controls." And yes, I know, we're all guilty to various degrees. I drive very little these days, as I feel guilt whenever I start up the engine; but I am miles from town. My thermostat is set at 79.5 degrees... what I can tolerate. Last month's electric bill was $37 and the month before, $33. So I don't personally require any lectures on leaving a small ecological foot print. I haven't bought new clothes in years... etc.
Hi Siouxrose,,, Florida is in big trouble... It's not alone.
Maybe we can all go to Death Valley for a week and get (aclimated) for what is going to happen... Ever been down in Death Valley in May thru Sept? It's very well named.
Wal-Mart and Exxon don't appreciate our type Sue. Or the Chinese manufactures of American brand named goods either.
Going over to the new thread here at CD about Fukushima... Not good there either, they're going to fry from a different reason.
I criticized Al Gore not for his hypocrisy, but for his sabotage of the Kyoto accords in the interest of the oil industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/17/5859
That is in no way irrelevant to the increase in global warming we face today.
The world needed the biggest polluter on the planet to cooperate, and Al Gore made sure that we didn't.
He certainly did not put up a fight to get the treaty ratified in Congress. As in, it was NOT even sent to Congress. If he had fought the good fight and still lost, that's another thing.
My poin about AL Gore was and is: Gore's film was correct. And what I said was irrelevant is, I don't like him either, for how he has acted. His film was excellent and correct, he personally is not.
Whatever else he may be, Gore, having lost the 2000 election, qualifies as the luckiest SOB in politics. He must have giggled his way through the morning news for the past ten years. It appears that lesson hasn't been lost on Obama.
(Gore, of course didn't actually lose the election and no doubt reveres Sandra Day O'Connor as his guardian angel.)
I could draw the conclusion that the following rant is possibly the result of watching the Corporations and Governments do nothing in the face of mounting documentary evidence. But then again it might not.
The rant is thus: Let the goddamned fools who denied the obvious drown, burn or starve! And good riddance to the worthless idiot lot of them!
The "goddamned fools" probably have the resources to mitigate or move away from the worst effects. Need I say that it is usually the poorest and most innocent who suffer the most when the earth stops giving.
Were it only the fools who would suffer so...
http://www.weathermodification.com/
reading radar maps is a skill everyone should develop
Take a few minutes and find out the countries, states, municipalities and corporations that are actively engaged in weather modification
"We can't guarantee that any specific disaster is caused by our warming atmosphere."
When a disaster occurs the climate deniers have their question, "Can you prove that this particular disaster was caused by global warming?"
So long as that is the question, the climate deniers will win the debate. The right question is, "Can you prove that this particular disaster would have happened without global warming?"
Then we can say, "We can't guarantee that any specific disaster would have happened without global warming."
Put a cork in it!