Real Leadership on Global Warming
Posted by on August 3, 2006 at 11:43 AM
New York Times' Columnist Bob Herbert writes today that it's "time to aggressively counter the dangerous nonsense" of those who dispute the threat posed by Global Warming.
Examples:
Senator Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Chair of the Senate Committee on the Environment:
“[M]an-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
Senator Burns (R-Montana):
“You remember the ice age? It’s been warming ever since, and there ain’t nothing we can do to stop it.”
"There ain't nothing we can do to stop it." Great example of someone who doesn't belong in the Senate. That is the lack of leadership being offered by Republicans who are content to ignore evidence, cherry-pick their facts (sounds so familiar...) and continue to serve their special interest friends.
Herbert points out:
You can’t blame any single weather event on global warming. But with polar bears drowning because they can’t swim far enough to make it from one ice floe to another; with the once-glorious snows of Kilimanjaro about to bring down the final curtain on their long, long run; with the virtual disappearance of Lake Chad in Africa, which was once the size of Lake Erie, it may be time to get serious about trying to slow this catastrophic trend.
And, some facts from the article:
- The first six months of this year were the warmest ever recorded in the United States.
- This summer, according to the National Climatic Data Center, more than 50 cities in the continental U.S. have set records for high temperature.
- Of the 21 hottest years ever measured, 20 have occurred within the last 25 years. And the hottest year of this recent hottest wave was last year.
- "In northern California, it was hotter for longer than ever on record, hitting 110 degrees four consecutive days in the nine-county Bay Area.”
- In recent years, the U.S. has had more than three times its normal share of extremely hot summer nights. “That is a particularly dangerous trend,” Mr. Borenstein wrote. “During heat waves, like the one that now has a grip on much of the East, one of the major causes of heat deaths is the lack of night cooling that would normally allow a stressed body to recover.”
But there is hope...
Unlike Senator Burns, there are people who understand that there are things we can do to mitigate the worst effects of global warming. We’d better do something fast. We’re no longer waiting for the tragedies predicted to result from extremely high temperatures, extreme weather events, storm surges and so forth. We’re already enduring them.
Remember New Orleans? And the thousands who died from the heat in Chicago and elsewhere in the Midwest in 1995? And, as incredible as it still seems, the 35,000 killed by a monster heat wave in Europe in 2003?
I think the single most effective thing most ordinary Americans could do to become more informed about global warming — and the steps we need to take to fight it — is to go see Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and read his book of the same title.
It would be a shame if it turns out that Americans have been so deprived of leadership for so long that they fail to recognize it when it’s offered to them.
ClimateCrisis.net has information about the Sound Science of An Inconvenient Truth.
Sierra Club has a wealth of information, including a list of 10 ways you can do your part.
Comments (10) «
The human race has no choice on this matter. We either take care of Gaia or Gaia will not longer be able to care for us. It is that simple. We must support the Gaia movement or perish. Mother Earth is literally choking to death as we speak.
"The Gaia Movement is an international network of individuals and Gaia groups, that share concerns with living more sustainably on the Earth."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_Movement
Senator Burns (R-Montana):
“You remember the ice age? It’s been warming ever since, and there ain’t nothing we can do to stop it.”
Is this why Senator Burns felt the need to publicly chastise fireman from other states for not moving fast enough to put out forest fires in his state?
I guess he owned a lot of timberland and didn't want to see his investment go up in smoke. To hell with wasting time trying to save the lives of folks who reside in trailer parks?
All good multi-nationalistic Republicans know that trees and rainforests are for looting not for the production of oxygen. Those who believe all that scientific hocus pocus are interfering with the free enterprise system...and Senator Burn's place at the head of the new Republican-mandated American aristocracy.
They laughed at Noah, too.
Julio, I guess Senator Burns and Inhofe figure that the water bugs and roaches survived the last ice age. So why won't the Republicans survive the next one?
The Republicans' complaint that acknowledging climate change will "cost the U.S. jobs" is a comment that I keep waiting for someone to challenge. Has anyone ever asked them for proof that jobs will be lost if we try and protect the Earth? Lke...how would they know? Someone has to call them on this standard line of theirs.
Global Warming. Is the fault of the human race or is it natural. We may never know but the way I feel about it is that the human race has helped make it worse. I believe that GOD made a perfect planet and universe. And if you do not believe in GOD you have to adimt that the earth had no pollution until man came along. We have destroyed this planet. The Native Americans had it right when they worshiped mother earth knowing that they had to resect this planet. We must stop and think about what we put in the water, ground and air. We only have one earth, so we better start living like we love this planet and universe like we love ourselfs.
It is time we do something. Anyone who says that global warming is false should lose all rights to their climate controls from their cars and house. Then maybe they will see the dramatic temparture changes that are happening more every year that goes by. If the Republicans would put the effort they put into smearing President Clinton then global warming would no longer be a problem.
I think their main mission is to encourage global warming through denial. So that the oil and energy industry can prosper with record profits.
I am a scientist as well as an environmentalist. Since I have lived in both conservative and liberal cities, I can identify political spin very well. While I used to really believe that global warming is in full swing, it seemed too obvious... human advancement, developing nations spewing out pollutants like developed nations used to when we developed years ago, it seemed clear that our earth was heading to be like Venus. Very hot, and very inhospitable.
But I then learned that the earth went through natural cycles of heating and cooling. So to have global warming was not a unnatural phenomenon. What was unnatural was human assistance. How influential is our pollution? While nobody can deny that the earth is IN GENERAL getting warmer, are humans to blame for accelerating or altering that cycle? I don't know, only cyclic comparisons to current data could answer that. But consider the case if we are not to blame. Does this mean we should pollute our merry way? Of course not, I don't want to breathe smoke. But is a spectacular ice-age to be prevented if we suddenly "go green"? No way. I am more worried about turning the waters and lands into cesspools then "The Day After" coming true. The earth can compensate for warming, maybe humans will get their ass kicked very deservingly. But the earth cannot compensate for toxic dumps. This is the pollution we need to address.
Hey, Burns is doing a fine job.
He just got through telling a firefighting crew that had been busting their butts to help put out that huge fire over in the eastern part of the state that they were slackers.
Every time he opens his mouth and makes a statement, recently, he gathers more and more votes for Tester.
He must really love the taste of toe jam.
Of course, he is having a hard time walking, what with his foot being constantly in his mouth. ;-D
phys431 and MefromMass, have you watched "An Inconvenient Truth"? The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is at about 375ppm. In the past 650,000 years the CO2 concentration was never more than 270ppm, and the temperature of the Earth correlates nearly exactly with the CO2 concentration. Each time the CO2 concetration got high, there was an ice age and the CO2 concentration dropped back down. With CO2 concentration as high as it is now, and growing higher, we risk reaching unlivably high temperatures followed by a longer and colder ice age than the Earth has ever had before.
It seems to me that only the dumbest fools would first say "No, there's no such thing as global warming. Nothing can happen if we keep spewing CO2. Show me absolute proof first," and then only after absolute and undeniable proof is measured and collected, admit "Yup, there's no doubt about it, CO2 definitely causes the Earth to warm up and it is warming up way faster than it ever has before. But now it's too late; there's simply nothing we can do about it, so we might as well just keep on spewing CO2 anyway."
The utter lack of common sense, and most of all lack of respect for the planet which lets us live, simply disgusts me. The day we become a species of individuals who no longer care about or work toward the health of our habitat and the survival of our species, shall be the first day of our self-initiated extinction. I hope that day has not come yet. As technologically advanced as we became, we may be remembered in earth's history as the shortest lived, and dumbest creatures in history. At least the dinosaurs didn't cause their own death.
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