It’s bad enough the House GOP keep passing legislation aimed at blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from enacting any climate change regulations.
But the new version of the House anti-climate bill omits a “sense of Congress” statement that was in the April 2011 bill the House passed:
“There is established scientific concern over warming of the climate system based upon evidence from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.”
Even that uber-mild statement is now apparently too much for the blinkered anti-science crowd in the U.S. House.
In fact, “concern” is about the weakest possible word you could use to describe how most climate scientists view our current predicament (see Lonnie Thompson on why climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization”).
Ironically, or tragically, the one way to remove most uncertainty about future climate impacts is to keep doing nothing. That way, CO2 emissions — and feedbacks — will be on the high end of the spectrum and even in the very unlikely event the climate system has a sensitivity to CO2 on the low end, overall impacts will still be catastrophic.
The earlier version, as The Hill reports, also had said America has a “role to play in resolving global climate change matters on an international basis.” But hey, if there’s nothing to be concerned about, then there’s obviously no need for any U.S. role.
As the Washington Post put it in April 2011, “The GOPs climate-change denial may be its most harmful delusion.”
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
There is no gravity, the earth sucks. Compliments of the GOP-p?
The US, probably the greatest nation in history, has annihilated our future. One giant step for mankind.
The concept of ‘the greatest nation in history’ is, if you’ll forgive me, part of the problem. The progress of humanity has been hindered, not benefited, by nationalism, and its attendant ills of jingoism and chauvinism, sicknesses that the USA has suffered from to a marked degree. To face the lethal threat of ecological collapse there must be global, collective action, without the hindrance of diktat issued by any country, no matter how firmly they are in the throes of the delusion that they have a Manifest Destiny to dominate the planet. I’m certain that US citizens, like those of the rest of the planet, if allowed to, have the will and capacity to work hard and sacrifice for decades, as will be necessary if we are to survive.
Don’t worry, Mulga, we’re not all assholes.
The Swedes are my idols (I’m part Swedish), because they don’t stick their chests out, but just try to do the right thing. Such as their substantial carbon tax.
I know full well that you’re not. However your ruling elites, in politics, business and propaganda are bad news. I have high hopes that one day the sane and rational fraction of humanity will hold power throughout the world. The elites here are equally repulsive, although their hubris is tinged with groveling sycophancy to your ruling caste, who frighten and repulse me the more simply because of the gargantuan power for ill that they control.
Based on what precedent?
Mulga can answer for himself but I assume that USA citizens are human beings like the rest of us, ME
Partial precedents exist, like some UN organs like UNICEF and UNESCO, although most UN bodies have been divided along ‘ús and them’ lines for years. However, we must set this precedent, and quickly, or we will be well stuffed. Believing that something is possible is surely the first step to its realisation. It would be the making of us as a species, as well, in my opinion. True global, universal, solidarity or self-destruction. I know which I’d choose, even if it had a snowball’s hope in Hell.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Climate-Portals/139434822741700
The staggering decline of sea ice at the frontline of climate change
http://www.guardian.co.uk
Scientists on board Greenpeace’s vessel exploring the minimum extent of the ice cap are shocked at the speed of the melt
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Climate Portals “This is a defining moment in human history,” I should say so!
“Fossil fuel companies are still making profits despite the fact that climate change is so clearly upon us. Our politicians are putting corporate interests above scientific warnings and failing in their duties to the public”
And the Guardian published an odious disclaimer to the effect that the ‘journalist’s’ copy was not vetted by Greenpeace.
I’ve always wondered why this isn’t a wedge issue between the corrupt, indolent politicians wanting to make most of God’s creation extinct versus social conservatives.
Just my opinion, but is there a political insensitivity within the environmental movement in the use of monkeys to picture the Republican political “friends” of Evangelical Christians? There was a famous Scopes monkey trial in 1925, all about evolution versus creationism. Evangelical Christians don’t need to be constantly reminded that nontheists are poking fun at their belief system.
In the end, we want to work together to inhibit climate change.
“based upon evidence from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures,”
I truly hate that. That phrasing makes it sound like 1) scientists noticed that temperatures are increasing. 2) scientists looked for a reason. 3) scientists decided it was caused by excess Co2 int he atmosphere from burning fossil fuels.
That sequence is totally wrong. The correct sequence is: 1) scientists observe rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. 2) based on the well-understood physical property of infrared energy absorption by CO2, scientists predict that the increased CO2 will cause warming over a period of decades. Hansen et al puts this into a detailed climate paper in 1981. 3) just as predicted, the atmosphere warms due to the increased level of CO2 from burning fossil fuels.
The observation of global warming was not the start of this sequence, but the final, validating step!
Climate Portals shared a link.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Climate-Portals/139434822741700
We are well past a cap n trade solution and a tax one for that matter. The time has arrived for direct action. We are in a crisis situation and a crisis response is required.
For the environment, too much liberty can be a bad thing
http://www.chron.com
The state agency that has responsibility for protecting the environment and public health – the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) – has given big energy corporations plenty of liberty. Corporations in Texas have taken the liberty to pollute our air, contaminate our water and lay pipe…
Paul, after we see some feedbacks kick in, and people are dying, Texas will still be drilling away and fighting regulations. When that happens, we need to void the statehood that was granted in 1845. Texans are just too stubborn, and will not change.