Face it. We Like Money More

Click on the picture.  Read it.

On Climate Change

A Facebook friend of mine, Steven McCain made this observation:

Climate change is either true or false. We have a 50% chance of being right. That leaves us with only 4 options.

1. It's true and we take action. We leave a better world for our descendants.

2. It's true and we take no action. The world as we know it disappears.

3 It's false and we take action. We leave a better world for our descendants.

4. It's false and we take no action. We leave a more polluted world for our descendants.

It's basically the same as this cartoon:

Think happy thoughts, kids. 

Positive thoughts.

Noam Chomsky:" Issues That Obama and Romney Avoid" (guest post)

Sadly, unfortunately, not nearly enough Americans will read this or be aware of its
points:

“With the quadrennial presidential election extravaganza reaching its peak, it’s useful to ask how the political campaigns are dealing with the most crucial issues we face.

The simple answer is: badly, or not at all. If so, some important questions arise: why, and what can we do about it?
There are two issues of overwhelming significance, because the fate of the species is at stake: environmental disaster, and nuclear war.

The former is regularly on the front pages. On Sept. 19, for example, Justin Gillis reported in The New York Times that the melting of Arctic sea ice had ended for the year, “but not before demolishing the previous record – and setting off new warnings about the rapid pace of change in the region.”

The melting is much faster than predicted by sophisticated computer models and the most recent U.N. report on global warming. New data indicate that summer ice might be gone by 2020, with severe consequences. Previous estimates had summer ice disappearing by 2050.

“But governments have not responded to the change with any greater urgency about limiting greenhouse emissions,” Gillis writes. “To the contrary, their main response has been to plan for exploitation of newly accessible minerals in the Arctic, including drilling for more oil” – that is, to accelerate the catastrophe.

This reaction demonstrates an extraordinary willingness to sacrifice the lives of our children and grandchildren for short-term gain. Or, perhaps, an equally remarkable willingness to shut our eyes so as not to see the impending peril.

That’s hardly all. A new study from the Climate Vulnerability Monitor has found that “climate change caused by global warming is slowing down world economic output by 1.6 percent a year and will lead to a doubling of costs in the next two decades.” The study was widely reported elsewhere but Americans have been spared the disturbing news.

The official Democratic and Republican platforms on climate matters are reviewed in Science magazine’s Sept. 14 issue. In a rare instance of bipartisanship, both parties demand that we make the problem worse.

In 2008, both party platforms had devoted some attention to how the government should address climate change. Today, the issue has almost disappeared from the Republican platform – which does, however, demand that Congress “take quick action” to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency, established by former Republican President Richard Nixon in saner days, from regulating greenhouse gases. And we must open Alaska’s Arctic refuge to drilling to take “advantage of all our American God-given resources.” We cannot disobey the Lord, after all.

The platform also states that “We must restore scientific integrity to our public research institutions and remove political incentives from publicly funded research” – code words for climate science.

The Republican candidate Mitt Romney, seeking to escape from the stigma of what he understood a few years ago about climate change, has declared that there is no scientific consensus, so we should support more debate and investigation – but not action, except to make the problems more serious.

The Democrats mention in their platform that there is a problem, and recommend that we should work “toward an agreement to set emissions limits in unison with other emerging powers.” But that’s about it.

President Barack Obama has emphasized that we must gain 100 years of energy independence by exploiting fracking and other new technologies – without asking what the world would look like after a century of such practices.

So there are differences between the parties: about how enthusiastically the lemmings should march toward the cliff.
The second major issue, nuclear war, is also on the front pages every day, but in a way that would astound a Martian observing the strange doings on Earth.

The current threat is again in the Middle East, specifically Iran – at least according to the West, that is. In the Middle East, the U.S. and Israel are considered much greater threats.

Unlike Iran, Israel refuses to allow inspections or to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has hundreds of nuclear weapons and advanced delivery systems, and a long record of violence, aggression and lawlessness, thanks to unremitting American support. Whether Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, U.S. intelligence doesn’t know.

In its latest report, the International Atomic Energy Agency says that it cannot demonstrate “the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran” – a roundabout way of condemning Iran, as the U.S. demands, while conceding that the agency can add nothing to the conclusions of U.S. intelligence.

Therefore Iran must be denied the right to enrich uranium that is guaranteed by the NPT and endorsed by most of the world, including the nonaligned countries that have just met in Tehran.

The possibility that Iran might develop nuclear weapons arises in the electoral campaign. (The fact that Israel already has them does not.) Two positions are counterposed: Should the U.S. declare that it will attack if Iran reaches the capability to develop nuclear weapons, which dozens of countries enjoy? Or should Washington keep the “red line” more indefinite?

The latter position is that of the White House; the former is demanded by Israeli hawks – and accepted by the U.S. Congress. The Senate just voted 90-1 to support the Israeli position.

Missing from the debate is the obvious way to mitigate or end whatever threat Iran might be believed to pose: Establish a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region. The opportunity is readily available: An international conference is to convene in a few months to pursue this objective, supported by almost the entire world, including a majority of Israelis.

The government of Israel, however, has announced that it will not participate until there is a general peace agreement in the region, which is unattainable as long as Israel persists in its illegal activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Washington keeps to the same position, and insists that Israel must be excluded from any such regional agreement.

We could be moving toward a devastating war, possibly even nuclear. Straightforward ways exist to overcome this threat, but they will not be taken unless there is large-scale public activism demanding that the opportunity be pursued. This in turn is highly unlikely as long as these matters remain off the agenda, not just in the electoral circus, but in the media and larger national debate.

Elections are run by the public relations industry. Its primary task is commercial advertising, which is designed to undermine markets by creating uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices – the exact opposite of how markets are supposed to work, but certainly familiar to anyone who has watched television.

It’s only natural that when enlisted to run elections, the industry would adopt the same procedures in the interests of the paymasters, who certainly don’t want to see informed citizens making rational choices.

The victims, however, do not have to obey, in either case. Passivity may be the easy course, but it is hardly the honorable one.”

© 2012 Noam Chomsky
Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate

Noam Chomsky's most recent book is "Occupy." Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

Links: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11956-noam-chomsky-issues-that-obama-and-romney-avoid

This is mid-March?

While working Saturday, an ice cream truck came by. Today, the 13th of March--still winter--it is forecast to be 82 degrees. Tomorrow? 86 degrees. (Keep in mind that's nearly 90). Now? The lady next door is running her lawn mower. So I ask you---THIS IS MID-MARCH??

Climate change deniers out there?

For any and all climate change deniers out there, please see the above photo. From the internet last evening: "Ghorama is an island located in West Bengal, India, that is eroding into the ocean due to a dramatic increase in the sea level. The photographer posed locals on disappearing segments of the island. According to the artist, locals who still live on the larger segment of the island expect to be relocated within the next 25 years." (Photo: Daesung Lee/Sipa Press) There's the glaciers and ice caps melting and then there's this. Ignore any- and everything else if you wish, but you can't deny these things. Link: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/snapshots-1320966603-slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Fsnapshots-1320966603-slideshow%252Fsnapshots111312-photo-1326482674.html

Missouri and Kansas in "Top 10 States Hit by Extreme Weather in 2011

Missouri is, indeed, number 3 on the list of the "Top 10 States Hit by Extreme Weather" this year. Kansas was number 7. In a way, really, no surprise on Missouri, is it? Joplin was so famously, horribly hit by the tornado May 22. But that's not all on Missouri and extreme weather this year: Tornadoes were just one prong of the deadly onslaught of extreme weather in Missouri, as a combination of heavy spring rains and upstream snowmelt sent the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers surging over their banks. According to NOAA, in an average year the Missouri River channels 24.8 million acre feet of water. This year, it carried 24.3 million acre feet in May and June alone. When the Army Corps of Engineers essentially blew up the levees to save the small town of Cairo, Illinois, floodwaters inundated around 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland. Then there's Kansas: The massive heat wave and drought that devastated Texas and Oklahoma didn’t hit Kansas quite as hard, but it was bad enough to help push the Jayhawk State into the top 10 this year. By midsummer, much of the southwestern part of the state was suffering under “exceptional drought” conditions — it ended up being the ninth driest year ever recorded — and by year’s end, there was still no relief in sight. Wichita had more 100-degree-plus days than any year on record, beating out even the Dust Bowl summer of 1936.

Watch How 2011 Became a 'Mind-Boggling' Year of Extreme Weather on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

The number one state for most effected by extreme weather? Texas. They fried. This past year has been described as "weather on steroids." (see last 2 links below) Here's hoping 2012 is better to the planet. Links: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/30/395849/top-10-states-hit-by-extreme-weather-in-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29; http://www.climatecentral.org/news/top-ten-states-hit-hardest-by-2011s-extreme-weather/; http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/12/30/395914/our-weather-on-steroids-the-mind-boggling-climate-disasters-of-2011/; http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/29/395730/pbs-covers-link-between-2011s-mind-boggling-extreme-weather-and-global-warming-its-like-being-on-steroids/

Good and timely question

Is Earth Day Dead?

Here's another good question, to my mind:  don't we need Earth Day now, more than ever, to raise awareness of what we're doing to this planet in so many ways?

Links:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378816/Texas-wildfires-Million-acres-scorched-towns-red-alert.html 

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_6d48fc16-8edd-591e-acd3-91beac10804f.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/21/rick-perry-pray-for-rain/ 

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/04/19/135510923/washing-away-the-arctic-coastline?print=1

Just focus on the glaciers and ice caps

Forget everything else you hear, read or see on high and low temperatures locally or anywhere on the planet, when it comes to global warming or climate change or however you want to refer to it. Let's focus instead on one thing--or one group, anyway. Let's focus on the ice caps and glaciers of the world, shall we? They're both--all, really--melting. And they're melting at unprecedented rates. Sure, a big swath of Russia is on fire and their food crop is severely affected and they're having to move around their missiles and planes and other weapons and, finally, they're experiencing their highest temperatures in the history of record-keeping but let's ignore all that. We're not Russians, after all, right? and we're not there. But pay attention to the glaciers and ice caps and keep in mind that, again, they're both melting to our peril, and they are melting at unprecedented rates. Check this out, today, from The Huffington Post: A giant ice island has broken off the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland. A University of Delaware researcher says the floating ice sheet covers 100 square miles – more than four times the size of New York's Manhattan Island. (See link below) 100 square miles of ice, folks. Can you even imagine that? I know I can't. And it just broke off the rest of the continent. And it's floating away. And melting. We're getting warmer and it's decidedly not a good thing. The way we live is not sustainable. Look around. We need to change. We need to use less. Keep cool this weekend, folks. (Just not too cool.) Link to original post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/07/petermann-glacier-giant-i_n_674326.html

No climate change, eh, Mike?

According to rocket scientist and local meteorologist Mike Thompson, there isn't any such thing as climate change or global warming.

This news comes to us today from a fellow blogger at Bottom Line Communications and Tony at TKC (see links below).

According to Bottom Line: "Veteran WDAF-FOX4 meteorologist Mike Thompson went on the "KCMO Morning Show With Chris Stigall" on KCMO-710 AM (12/2) taking the controversial stance that global warming is not man-made."

Who knows what that's supposed to mean.

Does he mean it's fictitious and made up or does he mean there is such a thing as global warming but it's "man-made"?

Who can say?

All I know, Mike, is that the ice caps and glaciers are melting and, if you'd read the article link below, from CNN, you'd see that people in Alaska are losing ground--literally, they're losing permafrost, earth, and homes, etc.--right out from under them.

"Coastal erosion has been an issue for decades here, but rising global temperatures have started to thaw the permafrost that once helped anchor this village in place. Sea ice that protects Shishmaref's coast from erosion melts earlier in the spring and forms later in the fall. As a result, the increasingly mushy and exposed soil along Shishmaref's shore is falling into the water in snowmobile-sized chunks."

How do you 'splain that, Mike?


Links: http://www.bottomlinecom.com/kcnews/thompsonglobalwarming.html

http://www.tonyskansascity.com/2008/04/mike-thompson-compares-global-warming.html

http://www.tonyskansascity.com/2009/12/kansas-city-weather-newsie-mike.html

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/12/03/shishmaref.alaska.climate.change/