Strong words on climate change

[Forkboy]

White House report notes apparent effects

WASHINGTON - Harmful effects from global warming are already here and worsening, warns the first climate report from Barack Obama’s presidency in the strongest language on climate change ever to come out of the White House.

Global warming has already caused more heavy downpours, the rise of temperatures and sea levels, rapidly retreating glaciers, and altered river flows, according to the document released yesterday by the White House science adviser and other top officials.

“There are in some cases already serious consequences,’’ report coauthor Anthony Janetos of the University of Maryland told the Associated Press. “This is not a theoretical thing that will happen 50 years from now. Things are happening now.’’

The White House document - a climate status report required periodically by Congress - contains no new research. But it paints a fuller and darker picture of global warming in the United States than previous studies and brief updates during the George W. Bush years. Bush was ultimately forced by a lawsuit to issue a draft report last year, and that document was the basis for this new one.

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2009/06/17/strong_words_on_climate_change_from_white_house/


The number of days in which the temperature exceeds 100°F by late this century, compared to the 1960s and 1970s, is projected to increase strongly across the United States. For example, parts of Texas that recently experienced about 10 to 20 days per year over 100°F are expected to experience more than 100 days per year in which the temperature exceeds 100°F by the end of the century under the higher emissions scenario.

[texastoast]

1. Hey

We canceled our trip to Colorado because many of the parks are shut down where we camp because of falling trees from the pine bark beetle infestation. The trees are falling and it is too dangerous. The temps in the Rockies aren't low enough in the winter now to keep the beetles knocked back. They are moving to the firs.

:cry:

[Forkboy]

2. A good example of the minute changes that can have big effects.

It won't be like the movie The Day After Tomorrow where everything happened overnight in an obvious way, it'll be a bunch of slower, smaller changes that will add up over time.

[Octafish]

3. That is some scary stuff, forkboy.

If we don't do all we can to save the planet, our kids and grandkids will never forgive us.
That is, if they're in any condition to forgive or forget.

[Forkboy]

5. Scares the shit out of me.

My biggest fear is that it's already too late to stop it. At this point it seems the best we can hope for is to mitigate the effects as much as possible...and cross our fingers.

[Octafish]

6. Science and Technology could change things.

Unfortunately, they cost money. And the rich don't want to cough any up.

No wonder they think the poor hate them.

[AllieB]

4. kick

[G_j]

7. IMO. one of the best things to come out of the Obama admin. so far

very important!

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

9. Meanwhile the Republican strategy to deal with the unfolding castastrophe

is to curl in to the fetal position, cover their ears with their hands, chant la la la la la la la la and whimper humanity in to extinction, what a bunch of p*&%#@ies!


http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/10/house-gop-prohibits-geg/

House Republicans today introduced their alternative energy plan. Developed by the Republican American Energy Solutions Group, the American Energy Act is billed as an “all of the above” energy program. But as The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson notes, the legislation looks more like an attempt to legislate the threat of global warming “out of existence.” Indeed, the bill specifically states that at no point in implementing their energy plan can the effects of global warming on the environment “be considered for any purpose”:

<SNIP>

Johnson remarks, “The Republican response to our dependence on fossil fuels and their pollution is to give billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies to the oil, coal, and nuclear industries.”

Thanks for the thread, Forkboy.

[Forkboy]

10. And thank you for that link.

I fucking hate Republicans. x(