Parents have always taken pride in telling kids how hard things were in the "good old days." That meme is the ultimate weapon when kids have the audacity to think they have it tough. Bill Cosby famously described how his father "walked to school at 4 o'clock every morning... with no shoes on... uphill... both ways... in 5 feet of snow -- and he was THANKFUL!"
But the "things used to be tougher" gambit may be losing some of its power. Thanks, in part, to climate change, snow, wind, sleet, rain, heat, et al., are now becoming stronger and less predictable. "What on Earth?" has already discussed the intense, bizarre nature of weather these days.
Our planet is warmer than any time in recorded human history. Yes -- that even includes when your grandpa was a kid. Heat waves are longer & hotter, and rain is heavier & more frequent; Drought is more common & severe than at any time in the past 100 years. Heck, it's even becoming more common to experience extreme shifts from dry to rain and sun to clouds than it was jus a few decades ago.
Since today's kids face windier wind, dryer droughts, heavier rain, and more blustery blizzards, what can parents lord over them? I humbly suggest the following: if it weren't for the carbon-intensive efforts of previous generations, children would now have nothing to complain about!
It's the gift of gripe, kids. You're welcome.
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"A senior environmental official at the United Nations...says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed.....Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of "eco-refugees", threatening political chaos...governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control...."
Link
http://tinyurl.com/6x8r9yc
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203935604577066183761315576.html
Too bad for you Algore.
The more you think about global warming and its possible effects, the more terrified you become. We must act now to save the planet because there's a lot more at stake than heavier rains and hotter summers. We can begin by voting against any politician who claims that global climate change does not exist.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2011/11/w-direction-revisited-2.html
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/15/former-alarmist-scientist-says-anthropogenic-global-warming-agw-based-on-false-science/
http://www.independent.org/publications/books/book_summary.asp?bookID=42&s=ga
http://www.oism.org/pproject/
You actually are agreeing with Wagner when you say it used to be colder in MN - isn't that 'global warming'? He is saying that the weather will have extreme patterns, not necessarily that it will be colder.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203935604577066183761315576.html
With global warming, we have a religion whose leaders are prone to spasms of anger and whose followers are beginning to twitch with boredom. Perhaps that's another way religions die
Let's analyze Perry's prayer vigil scientifically. Obviously praying for rain will not bring rain. Or perhaps, Perry's fruitless prayer vigil proves that God won't do our homework for us.
Global climate change is a scientifically proven fact. You can argue that the world is flat, but that won't change anything. You can claim that Newton's theory of gravity is false, but I would not recommend jumping off a skyscraper to prove it.
The same applies to global climate change.
We are also concerned about people in other countries that will have their lives destroyed by the effects of climate change. We are already seeing this happening.
Just take a gander at a globe. This isn't just about you.
I've yet to see any peer reviewed science from the denialists that has over turned any finding of the IPCC & climate change believers. How can you honestly compare right wing websites devoted to climate change denial like What'supwitthat, Iceage.com, to NASA, NOAA, & The Royal Meteorological Society? There is no comparison. Distortions, lies & junk science are used to question AGW. And if AGW was a hoax, why haven't the denialists already proven it? What's taking them so long?
That said, I don't believe it has been definitively proven by any stretch of the imagination that fossil fuels and the slight increase in CO2 is responsible for the slight temperature variance we've had.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-09-12/China-pollution-cancer-environmental-activists/50376252/1 > China's Cancer Villages
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6058302.stm > Russian Arctic waste
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-highest-deforestation-map.html >worst
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8066871.stm > africa rate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/22/earth-day-2011-worlds-most-polluted-places-_n_852617.html#s268313&title=Linfen_China
http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=389&catid=10&subcatid=66 >deforestation
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-05/30/content_604228.htm >rivers
http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-09/09/content_11277493.htm> auto pollution
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,493033,00.html> india river pollution
http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/AtmCorros/mapIndia.htm> india air pollution
http://www1.american.edu/ted/russair.htm> russia air
http://alttransport.com/2011/02/u-s-says-beijing-air-pollution-is-beyond-measurable/# >worst
This is the well-planned party line, to deny until disastrous climate change is obviously inevitable, and then say that it's too late to change now, so we might as well just keep burning coal and oil and methane.
Phase 2: "It may be changing, but it's natural."
Phase 3: "It's probably changing, but that's a good thing."
Phase 4: "If climate change is causing problems, there's nothing we can do about it."
Similarly if you have accurately decoded the strategy of the Denier Camp, then you essentially solved the Enigma Code and should be congratulated. However, having observed a lot of denier patterns that emerge and then disappear, I picture the denier machine more as an opportunistic virus that will invade any weak mind to pursue only short term goals. The strategies are coordinated at centralized locations but are changed on the fly as circumstances warrant.
To give a real world analogue, Stalin marched his armies up and down all over eastern Europe before he attacked Berlin. Using this approach he moped up army after army but was never predictable.