Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumBy Amy Goodman : Climate Change: ‘This Is Just the Beginning'
http://www.alternet.org/story/156203/climate_change%3A_this_is_just_the_beginning/_310x220
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.
joycejnr
(326 posts)...would be run down in the streets and placed in the stocks - at the very least. Beholden to Big Oil and other multinationals, they may have helped bring in an Armaggedon.
stuntcat
(12,022 posts)It seems like no one will get the least excited about the mass-extinction happening. No, they're even oblivious to the people already being killed by the rising disasters.
Oh but they're poor people.. some aren't even being counted. Who cares, let's have a big backyard BBQ and pig out til we pass out
leftyohiolib
(5,917 posts)country's motto
chervilant
(8,267 posts)Who, indeed! Apparently, there are members of this website who vociferously resist acknowledging our species' imminent mass-extinction, particularly if one metaphorically uses the term 'parasites' to describe our species. All of a sudden, any potential dialog is subverted into a personal attack, riddled with derision and condescension.
Fear can be a great motivator, OR a debilitating enervator. I can always tell when I've 'hit a nerve' with one of my posts: nay-sayers will go directly into attack mode.
Grammy23
(5,810 posts)Heard this morning on Chris Hayes' show "Up" that fully 25 % of meterologist do not believe in Climate Change. They think it is a hoax. These are the front line people in our living rooms daily telling us about the weather (not the same as climate) and could be leading the way to help ordinary people make the connection between the every day weather we experience and the long term consequences if things don't change. What we are seeing in our current weather patterns is exactly what was predicted years ago when the subject first was introduced.
As long as there are nay-sayers such as the talking heads on Faux News, not to mention the "scientific studies" sponsored and paid for by the Big Oil companies, we can expect that the mockery will continue and false information will be spread to the masses. One thing for sure....the weather these past few months (from warmer than normal winter weather, oddball snow storms, flooding,to tornadoes and wind storms) has gotten the attention of some of the sheeple. Already surveys indicate that it may be making an impression on them that maybe, just maybe they ought to be paying attention. Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes.
It is really maddening to think that BIG OIL has screwed us over once more by keeping people confused and misinformed. It is amazing to me that people would rather believe their lies and distortions than face up to the truth and try to do something to mitigate this really dangerous situation. I hope they wake up before it's too late....if it's not already. I am not sure how much longer they can bury their heads in the sand about this. The handwriting is on the wall........
chervilant
(8,267 posts)it is already too late.
However, our species has proven incredibly resilient and innovative. I still hope--for our children and our children's children--that we will find ways to adapt to the difficult decades ahead.
pscot
(21,024 posts)Three or four bad crop years will make feeding 8 billion of us problematic. Extend that over 3 or 4 decades and global famine looms as a real prospect.
I fully expect global famine. I think the corporate megalomaniacs are doing all they can to insure they will live comfortably (read eat well) while the vast Hoi Polloi struggles to survive heat, famine and severe water shortages. We are seeing this very reality in Africa and other parts of the Tropic of Chaos.
NickB79
(19,253 posts)When in fact they are very, very different professions, with climatologists held to much higher degrees of scientific scrutiny.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)People with "controversial" views don't get hired for jobs on the local news hour.
The TV stations need to hire someone with the same dumb vanilla delivery so they can just keep collecting that money from the advertisers. Nobody wants to screw with that winning formula. Reporting important information has very little to do with it.
Amy is right to draw attention to that problem. It would help if we could get the weather reporters to connect some of the weather dots into a bigger climate picture.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)What will happen when 75% of the people in America realize what we as a society are doing to the climate?
Quit work, eat home grown veggies and learn to play the flute?
The only thing we can do is prepare. And pray we are forgiven and not punished for what we have done.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)To save anything that is still savable.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Sayeth the owners of America.
I had the political will and tried to get others to get with it. Luckily, sometimes i think, i am lucky they didn't get me. But then i'm just one person. A person who obviously couldn't get ten people to leave a burning building.
So we are no threat to the owners. Not yet. Not now. Besides, what would the will do if the will could do something at will? <
No, it will be up to individuals to save whatever is savable. Politics is about petered out.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)We need rules and regulations to govern uses of our global resources like air, water, land. Or some kind of enforceable planned transition to a sustainable situation.
Only governments have the power to enforce rules like that. So that's where political will comes in to it, right? And so the meteorologists.
If it's up to individuals I don't understand how that would work.
Unless that's just your way of saying "We are all doomed...", in which case I agree.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)I am making plans to survive.
I think like a resident of New Orleans, pre-Katrina, should have been thinking: Govt ain't gonna save us.
I am looking for other survivors. Preppers, etc. Having many hands will make surviving more comfortable, eh?
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)What are your plans for surviving the environmental apocalypse?
Farm in the mountains, underground bunker?
How to get more info on this?
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Really I am looking forward to a simpler, more home based way of life.
And i hope to be comfortable. There will be sacrifices, indeed, but life can go on and help a new generation cope. It is the least we can do. Folks are welcome to pm me.