buy co-op whenever possible, Cabot farms cheese is my newest favorite co-op product. The "seriously sharp" cheddar will curl your toes and the habanero cheese will straighten them back out and leave you quite warm!
Yes! We belong to our local co-op and love it. We also shop at our local farmer's market. Nothing beats eating locally grown food that's been fresh picked ripe instead of picked green and ripped off-vine. AND the food is not transported as far- less carbon in the atmosphere! CSA's are great also.
A little off subject but maybe notice the use of the words "local" (adjective) and "locally" (adverb). Next time you see a billboard that say "Shop Local" get yourself some paint and fix it.
Buying co-ops are great and you usually have the power to order in bulk and freeze/can things to last through the winter so you don't have to go outside your 'local' area! I am still enjoying corn and tomatoes from the summer which is a win/win for me and the environment!
Fresh tomatoes and corn are great but I must confess, I've never had "local". Is it a little bit like rutabagas or closer to kohlrabi ?
More like kale :P
Are we getting something out of this all-encompassing trip?
Seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned...
You guys hear of streetbank.com? it's like a social network for sharing things ...
Bummer. It's offline.
yeah ... i was just putting my ice cream maker up and it went offline for maintenance ...
Making ice cream on this chilly morning?
haha ... no ... i was offering it up as my first item to share ... but i do make ice cream in the winter ... making your own is so easy and waaaaay better ...
It has to kick ass to be a scientist. No matter what the hell happens it supports global warming, and when it doesn't lets change the name to climate change. Future Weather prognosticators should take notice as there are jobs where they can be 100% right all of the time no matter what. Know need to provide %'s to hedge your bets.
It is flooding: climate change It is a drought: climate chang It is really cold: climate change It is really hot: climate change There are a lot of hurricanes: climate change There aren't many hurricanes this year: climate change The ice caps are melting: climate change The ice caps are expanding: climate change
this planet is an infinite system. we can pollute and increase greenhouse gasses forever because 7 billion humans couldn't possibly have an impact on the planet. or not.
i do agree it feels disingenuous to label all weather as resulting from climate change, but it is not disputable that periods of climate change experience wild local and global fluctuations in established weather norms. it's a no-win situation for both deniers and affirmers.
Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,300
It has to kick ass to be a scientist. No matter what the hell happens it supports global warming, and when it doesn't lets change the name to climate change. Future Weather prognosticators should take notice as there are jobs where they can be 100% right all of the time no matter what. Know need to provide %'s to hedge your bets.
It is flooding: climate change It is a drought: climate chang It is really cold: climate change It is really hot: climate change There are a lot of hurricanes: climate change There aren't many hurricanes this year: climate change The ice caps are melting: climate change The ice caps are expanding: climate change
All of the above are examples of local weather conditions. The most basic understanding of climate begins with knowing this: local weather does not equal global climate. The vast majority of scientist, particularly climate scientists readily understand this. No climate scientist with a very basic working knowledge of the field would say any of the above prove global warming (or "climate change"*) and suggesting that what these people do is related to hedging job opportunities... but of course your kidding.
* The popular arguments against global warming site statistics showing that the earth experiences periods of global cooling- some dips in the curve. This had led some to use the term "climate change". But the overall curve is upward and the commonly accepted scientific term is AGW- anthropogenic global warming.
Scientist: A kick ass job. Yeah, watching humans fuck up the planet. What a hoot.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
"Try to not spook the horse."
-Neil Young
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unsung
I stopped by on March 7 2024. First time in many years, had to update payment info. Hope all is well. Politicians suck. Bye. Posts: 9,487
It has to kick ass to be a scientist. No matter what the hell happens it supports global warming, and when it doesn't lets change the name to climate change. Future Weather prognosticators should take notice as there are jobs where they can be 100% right all of the time no matter what. Know need to provide %'s to hedge your bets.
It is flooding: climate change It is a drought: climate chang It is really cold: climate change It is really hot: climate change There are a lot of hurricanes: climate change There aren't many hurricanes this year: climate change The ice caps are melting: climate change The ice caps are expanding: climate change
Don't pretend you have any idea how the scientific process works.
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,300
That is interesting! I lived on the shores of Lake Erie for two winters and those were cold months! I heard stories of people who walked clear across Lake Erie over to Canada and other stories of people who perished trying to do so.
But what does any of this have to do with the subject of this thread, "global warming"?
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
"Try to not spook the horse."
-Neil Young
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,300
Not that this will change any minds but just to throw it out there, here is yet another article that explains how skeptics cherry pick statistics to "prove" global warming is not real:
The latest data is out on the prevalence of global warming denial among the US public. And it isn't pretty.
The new study, from the Yale and George Mason University research teams on climate change communication, shows a 7-percentage-point increase in the proportion of Americans who say they do not believe that global warming is happening. And that's just since the spring of 2013. The number is now 23 percent; back at the start of last year, it was 16 percent:
The percentage of Americans who believe global warming is human-caused has also declined, and now stands at 47 percent, a decrease of 7 percent since 2012.
At the same time, the survey also shows an apparent hardening of attitudes. Back in September 2012, only 43 percent of those who believed that global warming isn't happening said they were either "very sure" or "extremely sure" about their views. By November of last year, that number had increased to 56 percent.
Overall, more Americans now say they have all the information they need to make up their minds about the climate issue, and fewer say they could easily change their minds:
The obvious question is, what happened over the last year to produce more climate denial?
According to both Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale and Ed Maibach of George Mason, the leaders of the two research teams, the answer may well lie in the so-called global warming "pause"—the misleading idea that global warming has slowed down or stopped over the the past 15 years or so. This claim was used by climate skeptics, to great effect, in their quest to undermine the release of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report in September 2013—precisely during the time period that is in question in the latest study.
As we have reported before, the notion of a global warming "pause" is, at best, the result of statistical cherry-picking. It relies on starting with a very hot year (1998) and then examining a relatively short time period (say, 15 years), to suggest that global warming has slowed down or stopped during this particular stretch of time. But put these numbers back into a broader context and the overall warming trend remains clear. Moreover, following the IPCC report, new research emerged suggesting that the semblance of a "pause" may be the result of incomplete temperature data due to the lack of adequate weather stations in the Arctic, where the most dramatic global warming is occurring.
Nonetheless, widely publicized "pause" claims may well have shaped public opinion. "Beginning in September, and lasting several months, coincident with the release of the IPCC report, there was considerable media attention to the concept of the 'global warming pause,'" observes Maibach. "It is possible that this simple—albeit erroneous—idea helped to convince many people who were previously undecided to conclude that the climate really isn't changing."
"Even more likely, however," Maibach adds, "is that media coverage of the 'pause' reinforced the beliefs of people who had previously concluded that global warming is not happening, making them more certain of their beliefs."
As Maibach's colleague Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale adds, it isn't as though those who were already convinced about global warming became less sure of themselves over the last year. Rather, the change of views "really seems to be happening among the 'don't knows,'" says Leiserowitz. "Those are the people who aren't paying attention, and don't know much about the issue. So they're the most open-minded, and the most swayable based on recent events."
Journalists take heed: Your coverage has consequences. All those media outlets who trumpeted the global warming "pause" may now be partly responsible for a documented decrease in Americans' scientific understanding.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
All of the above are examples of local weather conditions. The most basic understanding of climate begins with knowing this: local weather does not equal global climate. The vast majority of scientist, particularly climate scientists readily understand this. No climate scientist with a very basic working knowledge of the field would say any of the above prove global warming (or "climate change"*) and suggesting that what these people do is related to hedging job opportunities... but of course your kidding.
* The popular arguments against global warming site statistics showing that the earth experiences periods of global cooling- some dips in the curve. This had led some to use the term "climate change". But the overall curve is upward and the commonly accepted scientific term is AGW- anthropogenic global warming.
Scientist: A kick ass job. Yeah, watching humans fuck up the planet. What a hoot.
Funny, because some of the people on this forum who always blaming humans for "climate change" do mention local events as evidence.
The only people we should try to get even with...
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,300
All of the above are examples of local weather conditions. The most basic understanding of climate begins with knowing this: local weather does not equal global climate. The vast majority of scientist, particularly climate scientists readily understand this. No climate scientist with a very basic working knowledge of the field would say any of the above prove global warming (or "climate change"*) and suggesting that what these people do is related to hedging job opportunities... but of course your kidding.
* The popular arguments against global warming site statistics showing that the earth experiences periods of global cooling- some dips in the curve. This had led some to use the term "climate change". But the overall curve is upward and the commonly accepted scientific term is AGW- anthropogenic global warming.
Scientist: A kick ass job. Yeah, watching humans fuck up the planet. What a hoot.
Funny, because some of the people on this forum who always blaming humans for "climate change" do mention local events as evidence.
That may be so and I like to see where that was done but really a local event (like, say, Hurricane Sandy) in-of-itself is evidence of nothing but a major local weather event. The cumulative odd weather events which are on the increase world-wide are, however, are a good reflection of what is happening to global climate. But the real solid evidence is much larger even than those events. The best evidence is comprised of a large mass of data that has been and is being collected and analyzed, scrutinized, shared and studied by a professional body of people who regard the situation seriously, not, as you suggested earlier, by a group of people who are seeking an easily snagged big paying job.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
great ... i don't feel as much of a dick for saying the same thing Bill Nye is ... which is educate yourselves people ... stop repeating BS ...
I'm can't see how more than about 0.05% of those who don't believe in global warming really believe that it isn't real and it isn't human caused. I think some people (not saying anyone in particular, no rule breaking here) just like to keep an argument going. Either that or they're trying to entertain us maybe?
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
great ... i don't feel as much of a dick for saying the same thing Bill Nye is ... which is educate yourselves people ... stop repeating BS ...
I'm can't see how more than about 0.05% of those who don't believe in global warming really believe that it isn't real and it isn't human caused. I think some people (not saying anyone in particular, no rule breaking here) just like to keep an argument going. Either that or they're trying to entertain us maybe?
no ... they are getting their info from the same sources as that congresswoman who is on the fucking science committee ... that's just fucked up there ...
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,300
great ... i don't feel as much of a dick for saying the same thing Bill Nye is ... which is educate yourselves people ... stop repeating BS ...
I'm can't see how more than about 0.05% of those who don't believe in global warming really believe that it isn't real and it isn't human caused. I think some people (not saying anyone in particular, no rule breaking here) just like to keep an argument going. Either that or they're trying to entertain us maybe?
no ... they are getting their info from the same sources as that congresswoman who is on the fucking science committee ... that's just fucked up there ...
It sure seemed like she was just reciting garbage plucked off cue cards. She didn't seem in the least very serious about what she was spouting. Just bad acting I'd say. And those "scientist" (as we well know) are just hacks for the oil industry.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
What was so confounding to me in that interview on Meet the Press, was what Nye said to that Rep. Congresswoman from TN: "You are our leader," he said to Blackburn. "We need you to change things, not deny what's happening." And that's what our leaders do. Instead of lead, they deny and step backwards.
The Fateful Collision - Floods, Catastrophe And Climate Denial
By David Edwards
An epic struggle is currently taking place that will determine the fate, and perhaps the survival, of our species. It is a collision between natural limits and rational awareness of the need to respect those limits, on the one hand, and the forces of blind greed, on the other.
Over the next few years, fundamental questions about who we are as a species really will be answered: Are we fundamentally sane, rational? Or are we a self-destructive failure that will end in the evolutionary dustbin?
As former Conservative energy minister Charles Hendry says, the recent UK floods 'have ended political debate about climate change impacts'. Indeed, recent global weather extremes suggest that something of 'enormous magnitude is happening'.
Even taken in isolation, the UK floods may constitute an 'absolutely devastating environment incident', a recent study by conservation scientists reports:
'Noxious hydrogen sulphide fumes and lead poisoning are among the threats from floodwater contamination – while animals at almost all stages of the food chain, from insects to small mammals and birds, are already thought to be drowning or dying from lack of food.'
And these floods are merely the latest in a very long list of extreme events, including the ongoing, record-breaking Californian drought. Of this, University of California, Irvine, hydrologist James Famiglietti has said: 'We are standing on a precipice here.'
In addition, we have seen the vast US 'polar vortex' and 'Frankenstorm' Sandy. Last year, Australia 'recorded its warmest year on record,' while Supertyphoon Haiyan, 'the strongest tropical cyclone on record to hit land', devastated the Philippines. India was also afflicted by massive floods. 2013 was 'the 37th consecutive year with a global temperature above the 20th century average'.
Tony Juniper, former director of Friends of the Earth, commented to us: 'The period of consequences is evidently upon us.'
The Bottom Line – Preparing For Human Extinction
Let us look more closely at the nature of this fateful collision.
In a quietly despairing blog, Guy McPherson, professor emeritus of natural resources, ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, nutshells one-half of the problem facing us:
'If you're too busy to read the evidence presented below, here's the bottom line: On a planet 4 C hotter than baseline, all we can prepare for is human extinction.'
Could that happen? McPherson quotes professor of climatology Mark Maslin:
'We are already planning for a 4°C world because that is where we are heading. I do not know of any scientists who do not believe that.'
That second sentence is worth reading again. Or we can recall the comments made by Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, on the BBC website in 2010:
....This, then, is one-half of our problem: McPherson is right about the significance of a 4 C rise in temperature, and he is right that scientists widely believe that we are indeed heading for a catastrophic 4 C warmer world, or worse.
There is, of course, debate about the timing of this temperature rise. McPherson could hardly be more pessimistic, arguing that it is already too late to save ourselves. He writes:
'Even mainstream scientists minimize the message at every turn. As we've known for years, scientists almost invariably underplay climate impacts. I'm not implying conspiracy among scientists. Science selects for conservatism. Academia selects for extreme conservatism. These folks are loathe to risk drawing undue attention to themselves by pointing out there might be a threat to civilization. Never mind the near-term threat to our entire species (they couldn't care less about other species). If the truth is dire, they can find another, not-so-dire version.'
A recent report by the Climate Council found that 'the frequency of heatwaves in parts of Australia has already surpassed levels previously predicted for 2030'.
Breaking The Back Of 'The Beast'
The second half of our problem is that evidence of this terminal threat to our existence is being obstructed by literally hundreds of millions of dollars of organised propaganda.
Earlier this month, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse made a courageous and crucial speech to the US Senate. He commented:
'I have described Congress as surrounded by a barricade of lies. Today, I'll be more specific. There isn't just lying going on about climate change; there is a whole, carefully built apparatus of lies. This apparatus is big and artfully constructed: phoney-baloney organisations designed to look and sound like they're real, messages honed by public relations experts to sound like they're truthful, payrolled scientists whom polluters can trot out when they need them. And the whole thing big and complicated enough that when you see its parts you could be fooled into thinking that it's not all the same beast. But it is. Just like the mythological Hydra – many heads, same beast.'
Whitehouse's speech made repeated reference to a ground-breaking new study by Robert J. Brulle, professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel university, which describes the organisational underpinnings and funding behind climate denial. This is the first peer-reviewed, comprehensive analysis ever conducted on the topic.
Brulle finds that from 2003 to 2010, 140 foundations made 5,299 grants totalling fully $558 million to 91 major climate denial organisations. These 91 organisations have an annual income of just over $900 million, with an annual average of $64 million in identifiable foundation support. The UK also has its own denial network.
Disturbingly, Brulle writes that 'while the largest and most consistent funders behind the countermovement are a number of well-known conservative foundations, the majority of donations are "dark money," or concealed funding'.
This is part of a trend:
'The data also indicates that Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, two of the largest supporters of climate science denial, have recently pulled back from publicly funding countermovement organizations. Coinciding with the decline in traceable funding, the amount of funding given to countermovement organizations through third party pass-through foundations like Donors Trust and Donors Capital, whose funders cannot be traced, has risen dramatically.'
In other words, as scientific evidence of looming climate disaster has become simply overwhelming, the funders blocking action to prevent disaster have knowingly hidden their support for fear of negative publicity.
....Senator Whitehouse sums up the significance:
'This apparatus is a disgrace. When the inevitable happens and the impact of climate change really starts to hit home, people will want to know: why? Why we didn't take proper steps in time. It's not as if there's not enough scientific evidence out there for us to act. Why not?
'This denial operation – The Beast - will then go down as one of our great American scandals, like Watergate or Teapot Dome - a deliberate, complex scheme of lies and propaganda that caused real harm to the American people, and to our country. All so that a small group of people could make more money a little longer.'
....
Post edited by Byrnzie on
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,300
^^^ Excellent article, Byrnzie. Thanks for posting it.
What's frustrating for some of us is that we have been reading about, and talking about and taking what actions we can on global warming for a long time- for me at least 25 or 30 years- I've lost count- and still we hear about the denial, still our leaders take no action, still we speed recklessly toward a brick wall. (This doesn't make me smarter or better than anyone else, just more years worth of frustrated.) The evidence has been around for some time now. The action taken on it has been inadequate. Will we start taking aversive action in time (if it's not too late) or will wait until the speeding vehicle is too close to the wall?
Yes, Byrnzie, carpe diem!
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
^^^ Excellent article, Byrnzie. Thanks for posting it.
What's frustrating for some of us is that we have been reading about, and talking about and taking what actions we can on global warming for a long time- for me at least 25 or 30 years- I've lost count- and still we hear about the denial, still our leaders take no action, still we speed recklessly toward a brick wall. (This doesn't make me smarter or better than anyone else, just more years worth of frustrated.) The evidence has been around for some time now. The action taken on it has been inadequate. Will we start taking aversive action in time (if it's not too late) or will wait until the speeding vehicle is too close to the wall?
Yes, Byrnzie, carpe diem!
Tyrrhenum. Sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi — Be wise, be truthful, strain the wine, and scale back your long hopes
James Lovelock: 'enjoy life while you can: in 20 years global warming will hit the fan'
The climate science maverick believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do?
Decca Aitkenhead The Guardian, Saturday 1 March 2008
...Lovelock has been dispensing predictions from his one-man laboratory in an old mill in Cornwall since the mid-1960s, the consistent accuracy of which have earned him a reputation as one of Britain's most respected - if maverick - independent scientists. Working alone since the age of 40, he invented a device that detected CFCs, which helped detect the growing hole in the ozone layer, and introduced the Gaia hypothesis, a revolutionary theory that the Earth is a self-regulating super-organism. Initially ridiculed by many scientists as new age nonsense, today that theory forms the basis of almost all climate science.
...On the day we meet, the Daily Mail has launched a campaign to rid Britain of plastic shopping bags. The initiative sits comfortably within the current canon of eco ideas, next to ethical consumption, carbon offsetting, recycling and so on - all of which are premised on the calculation that individual lifestyle adjustments can still save the planet. This is, Lovelock says, a deluded fantasy. Most of the things we have been told to do might make us feel better, but they won't make any difference. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable.
"It's just too late for it," he says. "Perhaps if we'd gone along routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don't have time. All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people coming to me saying you can't say that, because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do."
...Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.
Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."
...
Post edited by Byrnzie on
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,300
^^^ Lovelock is our Great Elder Godfather of modern day environmental thinkers. If he says it's too late to stop the landslide, I won't be surprised if he is correct... yet again. I like his idea that we have an immense amount of work to do. What do we have to lose? His prediction of 80% of the worlds population being wiped out is terrible to think about on a family and friend level but from a purely biological level it sounds like a good thing. That would put our species population at much more reasonable level.
What I'm also very interested in him saying "enjoy life while you can". The big question is, how do we do that and do the immense amount of work he mentions. I'm guessing he doesn't mean to suggest that we go out and buy speed boats and weekend Hummers. We sat outside this evening around a small fire and shared a glass of wine and looked at the stars. I think that might be closer to what he's getting at.
I hope we get some good discussion going here. I'm all ears for more input, suggestion, including thoughts on how to live well and easier on the planet.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
"Try to not spook the horse."
-Neil Young
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,300
Here's a interesting article from, of all places, a major popular news source- ABC- that suggests that doing what we can to curb the warming is important but perhaps even more so, our best move may be to learn how to live with the inevitable change:
Home> Technology It May Be Too Late to Stop Global Warming
Here's a dark secret about the earth's changing climate that many scientists believe, but few seem eager to discuss: It's too late to stop global warming.
Greenhouse gasses pumped into the planet's atmosphere will continue to grow even if the industrialized nations cut their emissions down to the bone. Furthermore, the severe measures that would have to be taken to make those reductions stand about the same chance as that proverbial snowball in hell.
Two scientists who believe we are on the wrong track argue in the current issue of the journal Nature Climate Change that global warming is inevitable and it's time to switch our focus from trying to stop it to figuring out how we are going to deal with its consequences.
"At present, governments' attempts to limit greenhouse-gas emissions through carbon cap-and-trade schemes and to promote renewable and sustainable energy sources are probably too late to arrest the inevitable trend of global warming," Jasper Knight of Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Stephan Harrison of the University of Exeter in England argue in their study. Those efforts, they continue, "have little relationship to the real world."
What is clear, they contend, is a profound lack of understanding about how we are going to deal with the loss of huge land areas, including some entire island nations, and massive migrations as humans flee areas no longer suitable for sustaining life, the inundation of coastal properties around the world, and so on ... and on ... and on.
That doesn't mean nations should stop trying to reduce their carbon emissions, because any reduction could lessen the consequences. But the cold fact is no matter what Europe and the United States and other "developed" nations do, it's not going to curb global climate change, according to one scientist who was once highly skeptical of the entire issue of global warming.
"Call me a converted skeptic," physicist Richard A. Muller says in an op-ed piece published in the New York Times last July.
Muller's latest book, "Energy for Future Presidents," attempts to poke holes in nearly everything we've been told about energy and climate change, except the fact that "humans are almost entirely the cause" of global warming.
Those of us who live in the "developed" world initiated it. Those who live in the "developing" world will sustain it as they strive for a standard of living equal to ours.
"As far as global warming is concerned, the developed world is becoming irrelevant," Muller insists in his book. We could set an example by curbing our emissions, and thus claim in the future that "it wasn't our fault," but about the only thing that could stop it would be a complete economic collapse in China and the rest of the world's developing countries.
As they race forward, their industrial growth -- and their greenhouse gas emissions -- will outpace any efforts by the West to reduce their carbon footprints, Muller contends.
"China has been installing a new gigawatt of coal power each week," he says in his Times piece, and each plant pumps an additional ton of gases into the atmosphere "every second."
"By the time you read this, China's yearly greenhouse gas emissions will be double those of the United States, perhaps higher," he contends. And that's not likely to change.
"China is fighting poverty, malnutrition, hunger, poor health, inadequate education and limited opportunity. If you were the president of China, would you endanger progress to avoid a few degrees of temperature change?" he asks.
Muller suggests a better course for the West to take than condemning China for trying to be like the rest of us. Instead, we should encourage China to switch from coal to natural gas for its power plants, which would cut those emissions in half.
"Coal," he writes, "is the filthiest fuel we have."
Meanwhile, the West waits for a silver bullet, possibly a geo-engineering solution that would make global warming go away by reflecting sunlight back into space, or fertilizing the oceans so they could absorb more carbon dioxide, or something we haven't even heard about. Don't expect it anytime soon.
It would take a bold, and perhaps foolish, nation to take over the complex systems that control the planet's weather patterns. That's sort of what we did beginning with the Industrial Revolution. Now we have to live with it.
So maybe Knight and Harrison are right. It's time to pay more attention to how we are going to handle changes to our planet that seem inevitable.
We can fight global warming and try to mitigate the consequences, but it isn't going to go away.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
In Florida, Officials Ban the Term “Climate Change”
Employees of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection have apparently been told not to use the terms “climate change,” “global warming,” or “sustainability” in official documents, according to a new report from the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. The policy apparently impacted how Florida’s environmental policy was conceived, executed, and explained. Florida officials have denied the existence of a climate change–denial policy, but it’s worth noting that the state’s governor, Rick Scott, has said he doesn’t believe climate change is caused by human behavior.
Climate change is a major issue in Florida, given that a significant share of the state’s land is coastal. Coastal erosion threatens the state’s population and economy. The National Climate Assessment recently warned, “There is an imminent threat of increased inland flooding during heavy rain events in low-lying coastal areas such as southeast Florida, where just inches of sea level rise will impair the capacity of stormwater drainage systems to empty into the ocean.” The story was published in Sunday’s Miami Herald.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
We are by far not the worst place to live not even close.and contrary to the media nonsense we Floridians are very conscious of of fragile Eco system.It can be argued we have some of the most diverse environmentally sensitive areas in the world and trust me,regardless of what you may hear from some of our dipshit politicians,on the ground in the real world we have some of the strictest enviorment rules of any state.In my area alone,sea turtles,water run offs, manatees,Mangrove preservation,elimination of invasive species,and preservation of our beloved wetland and estuaries. all fuel huge support by our very responsible citizens.Big sugar even is in on Everglades preservation and Maintaining ground water purity.Our beaches and waterways,wild life,sea life are our life blood and if anything threatens that it's a war here.In my town we have sign pollution rules and mandatory green spaces and preserved watersheds that you don't fuck with.So don't be so quick to judge.IMO There is no better state.regardless of politics.We enjoy our beaches,waterways and parks.very much here.
Comments
More like kale :P
Seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned...
I AM MINE
It is flooding: climate change
It is a drought: climate chang
It is really cold: climate change
It is really hot: climate change
There are a lot of hurricanes: climate change
There aren't many hurricanes this year: climate change
The ice caps are melting: climate change
The ice caps are expanding: climate change
i do agree it feels disingenuous to label all weather as resulting from climate change, but it is not disputable that periods of climate change experience wild local and global fluctuations in established weather norms.
it's a no-win situation for both deniers and affirmers.
* The popular arguments against global warming site statistics showing that the earth experiences periods of global cooling- some dips in the curve. This had led some to use the term "climate change". But the overall curve is upward and the commonly accepted scientific term is AGW- anthropogenic global warming.
Scientist: A kick ass job. Yeah, watching humans fuck up the planet. What a hoot.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2014/02/great_lakes_added_11_percent_i.html
But what does any of this have to do with the subject of this thread, "global warming"?
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/01/global-warming-pause-climate-denial-public-opinion
Global-Warming Denial Hits a 6-Year High
The latest data is out on the prevalence of global warming denial among the US public. And it isn't pretty.
The new study, from the Yale and George Mason University research teams on climate change communication, shows a 7-percentage-point increase in the proportion of Americans who say they do not believe that global warming is happening. And that's just since the spring of 2013. The number is now 23 percent; back at the start of last year, it was 16 percent:
The percentage of Americans who believe global warming is human-caused has also declined, and now stands at 47 percent, a decrease of 7 percent since 2012.
At the same time, the survey also shows an apparent hardening of attitudes. Back in September 2012, only 43 percent of those who believed that global warming isn't happening said they were either "very sure" or "extremely sure" about their views. By November of last year, that number had increased to 56 percent.
Overall, more Americans now say they have all the information they need to make up their minds about the climate issue, and fewer say they could easily change their minds:
The obvious question is, what happened over the last year to produce more climate denial?
According to both Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale and Ed Maibach of George Mason, the leaders of the two research teams, the answer may well lie in the so-called global warming "pause"—the misleading idea that global warming has slowed down or stopped over the the past 15 years or so. This claim was used by climate skeptics, to great effect, in their quest to undermine the release of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report in September 2013—precisely during the time period that is in question in the latest study.
As we have reported before, the notion of a global warming "pause" is, at best, the result of statistical cherry-picking. It relies on starting with a very hot year (1998) and then examining a relatively short time period (say, 15 years), to suggest that global warming has slowed down or stopped during this particular stretch of time. But put these numbers back into a broader context and the overall warming trend remains clear. Moreover, following the IPCC report, new research emerged suggesting that the semblance of a "pause" may be the result of incomplete temperature data due to the lack of adequate weather stations in the Arctic, where the most dramatic global warming is occurring.
Nonetheless, widely publicized "pause" claims may well have shaped public opinion. "Beginning in September, and lasting several months, coincident with the release of the IPCC report, there was considerable media attention to the concept of the 'global warming pause,'" observes Maibach. "It is possible that this simple—albeit erroneous—idea helped to convince many people who were previously undecided to conclude that the climate really isn't changing."
"Even more likely, however," Maibach adds, "is that media coverage of the 'pause' reinforced the beliefs of people who had previously concluded that global warming is not happening, making them more certain of their beliefs."
As Maibach's colleague Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale adds, it isn't as though those who were already convinced about global warming became less sure of themselves over the last year. Rather, the change of views "really seems to be happening among the 'don't knows,'" says Leiserowitz. "Those are the people who aren't paying attention, and don't know much about the issue. So they're the most open-minded, and the most swayable based on recent events."
Journalists take heed: Your coverage has consequences. All those media outlets who trumpeted the global warming "pause" may now be partly responsible for a documented decrease in Americans' scientific understanding.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/02/bill-nye-marsha-blackburn-climate-meet-the-press
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
http://medialens.org/index.php?option=com_acymailing&ctrl=archive&task=view&mailid=270&key=6b88564262ada9b197c4b90a7140d161&subid=14834-e0ebc148544be249d3165f5c16940366&tmpl=component
25 February 2014
The Fateful Collision - Floods, Catastrophe And Climate Denial
By David Edwards
An epic struggle is currently taking place that will determine the fate, and perhaps the survival, of our species. It is a collision between natural limits and rational awareness of the need to respect those limits, on the one hand, and the forces of blind greed, on the other.
Over the next few years, fundamental questions about who we are as a species really will be answered: Are we fundamentally sane, rational? Or are we a self-destructive failure that will end in the evolutionary dustbin?
As former Conservative energy minister Charles Hendry says, the recent UK floods 'have ended political debate about climate change impacts'. Indeed, recent global weather extremes suggest that something of 'enormous magnitude is happening'.
Even taken in isolation, the UK floods may constitute an 'absolutely devastating environment incident', a recent study by conservation scientists reports:
'Noxious hydrogen sulphide fumes and lead poisoning are among the threats from floodwater contamination – while animals at almost all stages of the food chain, from insects to small mammals and birds, are already thought to be drowning or dying from lack of food.'
And these floods are merely the latest in a very long list of extreme events, including the ongoing, record-breaking Californian drought. Of this, University of California, Irvine, hydrologist James Famiglietti has said: 'We are standing on a precipice here.'
In addition, we have seen the vast US 'polar vortex' and 'Frankenstorm' Sandy. Last year, Australia 'recorded its warmest year on record,' while Supertyphoon Haiyan, 'the strongest tropical cyclone on record to hit land', devastated the Philippines. India was also afflicted by massive floods. 2013 was 'the 37th consecutive year with a global temperature above the 20th century average'.
Tony Juniper, former director of Friends of the Earth, commented to us: 'The period of consequences is evidently upon us.'
The Bottom Line – Preparing For Human Extinction
Let us look more closely at the nature of this fateful collision.
In a quietly despairing blog, Guy McPherson, professor emeritus of natural resources, ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, nutshells one-half of the problem facing us:
'If you're too busy to read the evidence presented below, here's the bottom line: On a planet 4 C hotter than baseline, all we can prepare for is human extinction.'
Could that happen? McPherson quotes professor of climatology Mark Maslin:
'We are already planning for a 4°C world because that is where we are heading. I do not know of any scientists who do not believe that.'
That second sentence is worth reading again. Or we can recall the comments made by Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, on the BBC website in 2010:
....This, then, is one-half of our problem: McPherson is right about the significance of a 4 C rise in temperature, and he is right that scientists widely believe that we are indeed heading for a catastrophic 4 C warmer world, or worse.
There is, of course, debate about the timing of this temperature rise. McPherson could hardly be more pessimistic, arguing that it is already too late to save ourselves. He writes:
'Even mainstream scientists minimize the message at every turn. As we've known for years, scientists almost invariably underplay climate impacts. I'm not implying conspiracy among scientists. Science selects for conservatism. Academia selects for extreme conservatism. These folks are loathe to risk drawing undue attention to themselves by pointing out there might be a threat to civilization. Never mind the near-term threat to our entire species (they couldn't care less about other species). If the truth is dire, they can find another, not-so-dire version.'
A recent report by the Climate Council found that 'the frequency of heatwaves in parts of Australia has already surpassed levels previously predicted for 2030'.
Breaking The Back Of 'The Beast'
The second half of our problem is that evidence of this terminal threat to our existence is being obstructed by literally hundreds of millions of dollars of organised propaganda.
Earlier this month, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse made a courageous and crucial speech to the US Senate. He commented:
'I have described Congress as surrounded by a barricade of lies. Today, I'll be more specific. There isn't just lying going on about climate change; there is a whole, carefully built apparatus of lies. This apparatus is big and artfully constructed: phoney-baloney organisations designed to look and sound like they're real, messages honed by public relations experts to sound like they're truthful, payrolled scientists whom polluters can trot out when they need them. And the whole thing big and complicated enough that when you see its parts you could be fooled into thinking that it's not all the same beast. But it is. Just like the mythological Hydra – many heads, same beast.'
Whitehouse's speech made repeated reference to a ground-breaking new study by Robert J. Brulle, professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel university, which describes the organisational underpinnings and funding behind climate denial. This is the first peer-reviewed, comprehensive analysis ever conducted on the topic.
Brulle finds that from 2003 to 2010, 140 foundations made 5,299 grants totalling fully $558 million to 91 major climate denial organisations. These 91 organisations have an annual income of just over $900 million, with an annual average of $64 million in identifiable foundation support. The UK also has its own denial network.
Disturbingly, Brulle writes that 'while the largest and most consistent funders behind the countermovement are a number of well-known conservative foundations, the majority of donations are "dark money," or concealed funding'.
This is part of a trend:
'The data also indicates that Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, two of the largest supporters of climate science denial, have recently pulled back from publicly funding countermovement organizations. Coinciding with the decline in traceable funding, the amount of funding given to countermovement organizations through third party pass-through foundations like Donors Trust and Donors Capital, whose funders cannot be traced, has risen dramatically.'
In other words, as scientific evidence of looming climate disaster has become simply overwhelming, the funders blocking action to prevent disaster have knowingly hidden their support for fear of negative publicity.
....Senator Whitehouse sums up the significance:
'This apparatus is a disgrace. When the inevitable happens and the impact of climate change really starts to hit home, people will want to know: why? Why we didn't take proper steps in time. It's not as if there's not enough scientific evidence out there for us to act. Why not?
'This denial operation – The Beast - will then go down as one of our great American scandals, like Watergate or Teapot Dome - a deliberate, complex scheme of lies and propaganda that caused real harm to the American people, and to our country. All so that a small group of people could make more money a little longer.'
....
What's frustrating for some of us is that we have been reading about, and talking about and taking what actions we can on global warming for a long time- for me at least 25 or 30 years- I've lost count- and still we hear about the denial, still our leaders take no action, still we speed recklessly toward a brick wall. (This doesn't make me smarter or better than anyone else, just more years worth of frustrated.) The evidence has been around for some time now. The action taken on it has been inadequate. Will we start taking aversive action in time (if it's not too late) or will wait until the speeding vehicle is too close to the wall?
Yes, Byrnzie, carpe diem!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Tyrrhenum. Sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi — Be wise, be truthful, strain the wine, and scale back your long hopes
Here's another one from 2008:
http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
James Lovelock: 'enjoy life while you can: in 20 years global warming will hit the fan'
The climate science maverick believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do?
Decca Aitkenhead
The Guardian, Saturday 1 March 2008
...Lovelock has been dispensing predictions from his one-man laboratory in an old mill in Cornwall since the mid-1960s, the consistent accuracy of which have earned him a reputation as one of Britain's most respected - if maverick - independent scientists. Working alone since the age of 40, he invented a device that detected CFCs, which helped detect the growing hole in the ozone layer, and introduced the Gaia hypothesis, a revolutionary theory that the Earth is a self-regulating super-organism. Initially ridiculed by many scientists as new age nonsense, today that theory forms the basis of almost all climate science.
...On the day we meet, the Daily Mail has launched a campaign to rid Britain of plastic shopping bags. The initiative sits comfortably within the current canon of eco ideas, next to ethical consumption, carbon offsetting, recycling and so on - all of which are premised on the calculation that individual lifestyle adjustments can still save the planet. This is, Lovelock says, a deluded fantasy. Most of the things we have been told to do might make us feel better, but they won't make any difference. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable.
"It's just too late for it," he says. "Perhaps if we'd gone along routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don't have time. All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people coming to me saying you can't say that, because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do."
...Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.
Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."
...
What I'm also very interested in him saying "enjoy life while you can". The big question is, how do we do that and do the immense amount of work he mentions. I'm guessing he doesn't mean to suggest that we go out and buy speed boats and weekend Hummers. We sat outside this evening around a small fire and shared a glass of wine and looked at the stars. I think that might be closer to what he's getting at.
I hope we get some good discussion going here. I'm all ears for more input, suggestion, including thoughts on how to live well and easier on the planet.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/late-stop-global-warming/story?id=17557814
It May Be Too Late to Stop Global Warming
Home> Technology
It May Be Too Late to Stop Global Warming
Here's a dark secret about the earth's changing climate that many scientists believe, but few seem eager to discuss: It's too late to stop global warming.
Greenhouse gasses pumped into the planet's atmosphere will continue to grow even if the industrialized nations cut their emissions down to the bone. Furthermore, the severe measures that would have to be taken to make those reductions stand about the same chance as that proverbial snowball in hell.
Two scientists who believe we are on the wrong track argue in the current issue of the journal Nature Climate Change that global warming is inevitable and it's time to switch our focus from trying to stop it to figuring out how we are going to deal with its consequences.
"At present, governments' attempts to limit greenhouse-gas emissions through carbon cap-and-trade schemes and to promote renewable and sustainable energy sources are probably too late to arrest the inevitable trend of global warming," Jasper Knight of Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Stephan Harrison of the University of Exeter in England argue in their study. Those efforts, they continue, "have little relationship to the real world."
What is clear, they contend, is a profound lack of understanding about how we are going to deal with the loss of huge land areas, including some entire island nations, and massive migrations as humans flee areas no longer suitable for sustaining life, the inundation of coastal properties around the world, and so on ... and on ... and on.
That doesn't mean nations should stop trying to reduce their carbon emissions, because any reduction could lessen the consequences. But the cold fact is no matter what Europe and the United States and other "developed" nations do, it's not going to curb global climate change, according to one scientist who was once highly skeptical of the entire issue of global warming.
"Call me a converted skeptic," physicist Richard A. Muller says in an op-ed piece published in the New York Times last July.
Muller's latest book, "Energy for Future Presidents," attempts to poke holes in nearly everything we've been told about energy and climate change, except the fact that "humans are almost entirely the cause" of global warming.
Those of us who live in the "developed" world initiated it. Those who live in the "developing" world will sustain it as they strive for a standard of living equal to ours.
"As far as global warming is concerned, the developed world is becoming irrelevant," Muller insists in his book. We could set an example by curbing our emissions, and thus claim in the future that "it wasn't our fault," but about the only thing that could stop it would be a complete economic collapse in China and the rest of the world's developing countries.
As they race forward, their industrial growth -- and their greenhouse gas emissions -- will outpace any efforts by the West to reduce their carbon footprints, Muller contends.
"China has been installing a new gigawatt of coal power each week," he says in his Times piece, and each plant pumps an additional ton of gases into the atmosphere "every second."
"By the time you read this, China's yearly greenhouse gas emissions will be double those of the United States, perhaps higher," he contends. And that's not likely to change.
"China is fighting poverty, malnutrition, hunger, poor health, inadequate education and limited opportunity. If you were the president of China, would you endanger progress to avoid a few degrees of temperature change?" he asks.
Muller suggests a better course for the West to take than condemning China for trying to be like the rest of us. Instead, we should encourage China to switch from coal to natural gas for its power plants, which would cut those emissions in half.
"Coal," he writes, "is the filthiest fuel we have."
Meanwhile, the West waits for a silver bullet, possibly a geo-engineering solution that would make global warming go away by reflecting sunlight back into space, or fertilizing the oceans so they could absorb more carbon dioxide, or something we haven't even heard about. Don't expect it anytime soon.
It would take a bold, and perhaps foolish, nation to take over the complex systems that control the planet's weather patterns. That's sort of what we did beginning with the Industrial Revolution. Now we have to live with it.
So maybe Knight and Harrison are right. It's time to pay more attention to how we are going to handle changes to our planet that seem inevitable.
We can fight global warming and try to mitigate the consequences, but it isn't going to go away.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/events/a-discussion-on-climate-change-evidence-and-causes/
http://news.yahoo.com/florida-officials-ban-term-climate-change-133852957.html
In Florida, Officials Ban the Term “Climate Change”
Employees of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection have apparently been told not to use the terms “climate change,” “global warming,” or “sustainability” in official documents, according to a new report from the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. The policy apparently impacted how Florida’s environmental policy was conceived, executed, and explained. Florida officials have denied the existence of a climate change–denial policy, but it’s worth noting that the state’s governor, Rick Scott, has said he doesn’t believe climate change is caused by human behavior.
Climate change is a major issue in Florida, given that a significant share of the state’s land is coastal. Coastal erosion threatens the state’s population and economy. The National Climate Assessment recently warned, “There is an imminent threat of increased inland flooding during heavy rain events in low-lying coastal areas such as southeast Florida, where just inches of sea level rise will impair the capacity of stormwater drainage systems to empty into the ocean.” The story was published in Sunday’s Miami Herald.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/os-guns-on-campus-law-20141209-story.html
State lawmaker files bill to allow guns on college campuses
But I digress...