In a prior post, A New Climate Reality, I wrote how difficult it has been for specialists to face the more personal aspects of climate change. Some of those who know the science and say, yes, this is really happening, are more easily drawn to the lure of cold data over harsh reality, while those who don't believe take out their fear on those who do in a bizarre spate of bullying that seems to have become the norm in our sadly coarsened society.
The world changes so fast, it's difficult to see it in context. Scientists watch from a mathematical point of view, points on a graph, comparative analyses, blips on radar from sensors slapped on the bows of ships. Dry bits of brain matter fight the brain freeze caused by information overload of drought in the Southwest, typhoon-caused floods in Bangladesh, tornadoes in the Midwest, and where's all that snow coming from? It begins to look horrifyingly familiar: one person's agony is another's data.
That may change. A year ago, the world shivered in unexpected blizzards the scientists warned were like a de-frosting freezer as the cold air of the warming arctic rushed south. Just wait until next year, the caution came, when enough of the ice is gone and we really start to heat up.
NPR tackled this recently on an episode of Fresh Air entitled: "Sunny Days are Here Again -- But is that Good?" where they posit that the early spring is more than just warm weather:
"When we look at where the extremes have occurred in the U.S. over the last year, we see them essentially everywhere: droughts in the West, floods in the Northeast [and] tornadoes in the middle... It really is the case that there is no place on the map that is immune to climate change and disasters."
Will those who deny climate change peer out of their windows at the pleasant sunny days they know don't make sense for the time of year and admit to themselves that the visceral unease they can't quite shake means something? Will those less fortunate that hadn't believed stare at the rubble of their homes, their crops, their forests, their livestock and make the connection?
We've tossed the climate dice and the odds are against us. We can all do everything we should about the air, the water and our footprint. I recently changed everything to LEDs and solar attic fans and benefited with significantly lower electric bills. Good for me and the planet.
It won't change the course we're on for more generations than we'll be around to see. The new climate reality is that we've blown it. Climate change has arrived. The damage is done and is about to grow exponentially as the methane trapped in the melting tundra is released.
While we must do everything we can to mitigate the risk for the future there's another duty that befalls us all -- to help those impacted, to speak the truth, to change the paradigm of the coarsened society back to the values of our parents and grandparents when courage, compassion and empathy were worthy values.
It's worth it for us to do this, not only for the conscience of our immortal souls, but for our safety as climate change has been declared a risk to national security. Wars have been fought over resources more than ideology and resources are the scarce commodity in this changing reality.
We pulled together during World War II to win a battle against true evil. We've been at war for over a decade now with little sense of sacrifice on the part of the American people, while our soldiers, sailors and airmen fight in regions where oil is the prize with a price of climate.
The next decades will bring evidence even for the most passionate of disbelievers. Whether they'll raise their heads out of their self-inflicted sand to reach out to those who've been harmed more than they have is yet to be seen. It will be necessary that they do so as it will take a very long time to repair what we've done to our ourselves.
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Climate change won't boost plant performance
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Times this heat output by every vehicle on the planet and you have a considerable heat figure to consider ,so why was this figure left out of all of the equations on planet /global warming ?
Now we particle filters for diesel engines causing even more heat retention .
Once one gets it moving, it has an equal amount of momentum.
Governments should invest heavily in emergency equipment.
We are going to need it.
It's hard to feel much sympathy, however.
Since the sixties, some of us have been saying, that if we continued to do X(burn fossil fuels) then Y(very bad things) would happen.
Well, here's Y.
Enjoy.
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The Green Industrial Complex consists of the UN, Exxon, BP, GE, (and 50 other energy companies all of which make big $$ on green energy), combined with most of the governments of the world. This is a formidable force.
Fact is that the planet has not warmed for 12 years. It is warming on a time scale of decades, though, and has been since well before humans started making CO2 in large amounts.
Storms are not getting any worse, there are no methane releases, and generally the weather is doing what its always done - be a source of conversation and worry.
Many plant nurseries shifted their stock years ago, selling plants that are one zone warmer and selling more draught tolerant cultivars(I know, because I've slowly altered my garden and winter mulching practices to adapt, preserving what I can, digging up of what I cannot). Farmers have changed what crops they plant, what seed stock they use, or what kind of plantings go in what fields. Insurance companies have altered coverage, raised flood premiums, abandoned certain policies, or even pulled out of doing business in certain states. And so forth.
Some adaptations are relatively quick and easy to institute. Some will take more complex efforts. The smart will adapt, move, and prosper.
of oppressive authority with as much integrity as
possible. The task of an activist is to confront and
take down these systems of oppressive authority."
--Lierre Keith
"We have been too kind to those who are destroying the planet.
We have been inexcusably, unforgivably, insanely kind."
-- Derrick Jensen
Industrial Civilization is Incompatible With Life
http://deepgreenresistance.org/civincompatiblewithlife/
He suggests treaties establishing carbon taxes, but they require ratification by “the dysfunctional Congress.” “However, there is a way around that…” he continues. China could, “ in its own interest” establish “rising internal carbon fees.” It could then enlist other nations to follow its lead. Acting together, they could impose punitive duties on imports from countries that don’t have, “an equivalent carbon fee or tax.” “The United States then would be forced to make a choice. Address its fossil-fuel addiction…or risk descent into second-rate and third-rate economic well being” A blueprint for economic blackmail of the US by China. I think one word, “boycott” sums it up nicely.
Op-ed piece in South China Morning Post 11/3/10. “The climate crystal ball is clear…” he begins. That sums up his scientific method, I think. The image of Johnny Carson as the Great Carnac comes to mind. “Is there any hope….,” he asks. “Yes. China is the best hope.”
Calling someone a liar in writing is libelous. I learned a lot of libel law when I was a partner in the firm that represented William Loeb and the Manchester Union Leader. Saying they’re “misinformed” is safer. Also civil.
We are no doubt warming but some of the anecdotes don't makes sense. Yes, there are tornadoes in the Midwest but they were worse when I was a kid. Yes, the number of tornadoes last year seems high but times were worse in the early 70s.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/tornado/clim/EF3-EF5.png
The best evidence of global warming is global temperatures.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
Wouldn't our efforts be better spent trying to set up plans for the side effects of climate change. Much of the side effects will not occur instantaneous. For example if ice sheets continue to melt and sea levels rise, we would not be inundated in an instantaneous flood. Instead seas would rise gradually - over years. Would we be better to recognize at risk areas - say New Orleans - and build better flood walls?
Since the effects are already present, isn't many of the things - like light bulbs and hybrids - we are doing misguided. I just think it would be better to work on adaptations since we clearly missed the chance to stop it.
The best estimates are that we are now only seeing about 10% of the climate change that will happen in the coming decades if we don't reduce carbon emissions.
The reason we should take those estimates seriously is that climate scientists predicted the current conditions 30 years ago, and those same scientists are the ones predicting what is going to happen in the future.
That is why we need to reduce emissions. We will be forced to adapt as well, since some of the effects are already occurring right now.
Indeed, our parents went to war in 1943 to try and save the planet from an axis of evil that would have destroyed the world. We lack the resolve and the moral courage our parents possessed to match such a sacrifice.
We need a third political party centered squarely around green politics. That and human rights for all.
Ecosystems regulate and moderate the climate and naturally sequester the climate warming, heat trapping gases. When we kill ecosystems for dead solar panels and dead windmills, we kill ecosystems as surely as if we dropped a bomb on them!
If modern man is in the business of killing ecosystems for concrete, cities and dead fields of solar panels and planet gobbling, biodiversity killing windmills, how is it we forgot the first green, the deep green? Nuclear energy kills far less acreage of ecosystems for high energy yield than all the rest!
Today, man has forgotten the first green, the big green that seeded the environmental movement or the salvation and protection of Earth's living, life giving body or ecosystems and their plant and animal biodiversity. Today, the big green is being sacrificed for the climate, like raping our fragile desert systems, for as dead as Mars fields of solar panels and windmills. Killing all the reasons man breathes for the climate?
We cannot sacrifice Earth's ecosystems and their biodiversity for energies. They must be utilized where people live -- only on rooftops, shopping centers, and parking lots because our lives and all the reasons we breathe, depend only upon ecosystems.
We cannot sacrifice millions to cancer, and our entire civilization to proliferation from nuke power.
Rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio fuels use NEGATIVE land.
You are a fraud.
Your "far more worried about global warming than global warming" is about as Freudian as it gets.
There was some debate, but the majority of scientists believed that the warming trend would overcome aerosol cooling. When passage of environmental laws reduced aerosol pollution, global warming decisively won out.
The popular media, with "coming ice age" stories, sensationalized the discussion. There was never a belief among scientists that a literal ice age was a near term problem.