Amy Goodman: Climate Change: ‘This Is Just the Beginning’
from truthdig:
Climate Change: This Is Just the Beginning
Posted on Jul 3, 2012
By Amy Goodman
Evidence supporting the existence of climate change is pummeling the United States this summer, from the mountain wildfires of Colorado to the recent derecho storm that left at least 23 dead and 1.4 million people without power from Illinois to Virginia. The phrase extreme weather flashes across television screens from coast to coast, but its connection to climate change is consistently ignored, if not outright mocked. If our news media, includingor especiallythe meteorologists, continue to ignore the essential link between extreme weather and climate change, then we as a nation, the greatest per capita polluters on the planet, may not act in time to avert even greater catastrophe.
More than 2,000 heat records were broken last week around the U.S. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the government agency that tracks the data, reported that the spring of 2012 marked the largest temperature departure from average of any season on record for the contiguous United States. These record temperatures in May, NOAA says, have been so dramatically different that they establish a new neighborhood apart from the historical year-to-date temperatures.
In Colorado, at least seven major wildfires are burning at the time of this writing. The Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs destroyed 347 homes and killed at least two people. The High Park fire farther north burned 259 homes and killed one. While officially contained now, that fire wont go out, according to Colorados Office of Emergency Management, until an act of nature such as prolonged rain or snowfall. The derecho storm system is another example. Derecho is Spanish for straight ahead, and that is what the storm did, forming near Chicago and blasting east, leaving a trail of death, destruction and downed power lines.
Add drought to fire and violent thunderstorms. According to Dr. Jeff Masters, one of the few meteorologists who frequently makes the connection between extreme weather and climate change, across the entire Continental U.S., 72 percent of the land area was classified as being in dry or drought conditions last week. Were going to be seeing a lot more weather like this, a lot more impacts like were seeing from this series of heat waves, fires and storms. ... This is just the beginning. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/climate_change_this_is_just_the_beginning_20120703/?ln
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)The system has been off balanced and we are in a chaotic zone where non-linear change is occurring. We were warned. We did fuck all about it.
Faygo Kid
(21,478 posts)But go to any site - doesn't have to be the Freepers - and you will see vehement negative reaction to any articles hinting that global warming is a reality. They accuse those who follow science of it being our religion, but denial is their religion, and St. Rush is their scientist.
SteveG
(3,109 posts)We passed the tipping point about 15 years ago. We need to be planning now to start moving huge populations of people to higher ground, but we won't (the denier's won't let us), and ultimately we are going to see a worldwide and civilization shattering crisis. A hundred years from now, those who refused to see the truth will be as reviled as Hitler and Stalin.
Craig_Langford
(48 posts)Many people don't realize that we've already passed the tipping point. Conservatives are in denial. If we don't do something now, and I mean now, things will only get worse. Things might not get better even with massive measures to combat global warming/climate change, but without anything else they will get worse.
The thing is people don't realize how little it takes to change climate patterns completely. Just a 1% change in the local temperature in either direction sets off chain reactions everywhere across the world. So you could have a plant say in Texas and because of the way climate works you get flash floods in Bangladesh. Now take that and multiply it by millions and millions and it's not a pretty picture.