Something to think about on this Sunday afternoon …
Tag Archives: Global warming
A Seasonal Tune … Toon
Do Democrats think climate change is a worthy cause to spend our children and their children’s money on?
Last night I came across a post by fellow blogger Arthyr, or kingarthyr as it were, that is absolutely the best, simplest, easy-to-understand explanation of climate change that I have ever heard or read. A 12-year-old child could understand this, and it is a perfect response to those climate deniers who are wearing their rose-coloured glasses and claiming that the changes in Earth’s atmosphere are natural, not caused by human excesses. Thank you, Arthyr, for this clarifying piece!
Well, Dean, I’m not a Democrat but I’m going to ask you 3 very simple questions:
Have you ever heard that an ounce of prevention is cheaper than a pound of cure?
Have you realized it entered your head, at all, if the planet cannot sustain life there will be no descendants?
Is it better WE clean up our mess or leave it to THEM to clean up our mess?
I get it, you don’t understand what climate change is, or how it will affect the planet, or the future, so I’m going to explain it in layman’s terms for you, and even use some pictures.
This is what happened to places all around the world that locked down just during the early stages of the pandemic in a set of before/after pictures, taken at the exact same places:
The above and below shot are after and before, not before…
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Last Chance
And speaking of climate change, and those who would deny its existence for the sake of their profit and convenience, fellow-blogger justdrivewillyou has written an excellent, hard-hitting post about the topic that I wish I could send to all those who simply shrug their shoulders at the topic. Thank you, justdrive, for an excellent post and your kind permission to re-blog!
CLIMATE CHANGE, IF WE CONTINUE TO IGNORE IT, WILL LEAD TO OUR EXTINCTION.
Did anybody miss that? Let me say it again.
CLIMATE CHANGE, IF WE CONTINUE TO IGNORE IT, WILL LEAD TO OUR EXTINCTION.
There is no greater threat to humanity. Not ISIS. Not illegal immigrants.Not even delusional, despotic Presidents.
None of them are a match for Mother Nature.
If you’re still a Denier, well, pardon me but, pull your head out. This is real, it is urgent, and denying it won’t keep it away.
It’s not a Democratic issue, a Republican issue, or even an American issue. It is a human issue, and it demands all our attention.
If we fail to give it, we’re done for. Period.
Are you all with me? Good, listen up:
Last week, a resolution was introduced to Congress declaring a Climate Change Emergency. The resolution, H.Con.Res.52, sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders…
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Going … Going … Gone
This morning the United Nations released a report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the premise of which is that as many as one million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction. Think about this one, folks … one million …
That in itself is cause for grief, but the report goes a step further than previous studies by linking the loss of species to humans and analyzing its effect on food and water security, farming and economies. According to the report, more plants and animals are threatened with extinction now than any other period in human history. Nature’s current rate of decline is unparalleled, it says, and the accelerating rate of extinctions “means grave impacts on people around the world are now likely.”
Now, personally I do not, as some do, see the human species as superior to all others. Obviously, if the human species were so superior, we would not be willfully destroying every living creature on the planet. No, I think humans are without doubt the greediest, most selfish species on earth. But, since we broke it, it is up to us to fix it, and yet the very people with the greatest ability to do so, refuse, putting their own convenience and profit ahead of the future of all life on earth.
It isn’t only the effects of climate change that are causing the global crisis. The report emphasized the effects humans have on animals that are key to their own survival. Pesticides sprayed by farmers that kill pollinators such as bees and other insects will likely have a devastating effect on crops. Homeowners contribute to the problem by purchasing “bug zappers” that target mosquitoes but also eliminate key pollinators such as butterflies and moths, as well as common flies that some animals rely on for food.
The report has a positive spin, saying that “it is not too late to make a difference.” But that difference requires more than 100 developing and non-developed nations to work together to bring about change. Today. Not tomorrow or next year – TODAY!
A friend recently told me that she believes God gave the earth to humans for the purpose of their enjoyment and that there is nothing to worry about, for in essence God wants people to be happy and will replenish the earth without us changing our lifestyle. Well, folks, guess what? That is the biggest line of bullshit I’ve ever heard. The owners of those factories spewing tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, the companies that produce the killing pesticides, the fossil fuel industry have all contributed to convincing people to “stay calm”, that the scientists are all wrong, and that everything will be alright.
EVERYTHING WILL NOT BE ALRIGHT!
So, why am I carrying on again about the same topic I’ve written about multiple times? Because we’re not getting through to the politicians who can make the biggest difference through legislation. Because we’re not getting through to our friends and neighbors. Because … we all have children and grandchildren and we are allowing their future to be destroyed. I know you’re tired and so am I, but we need to do more. We need to do our own small part, sure, but we also need to get back on a letter-writing, phone-calling, e-mailing campaign and tell our elected officials to get off their sweet patooties and do the right thing.
An anonymous comment I read this morning in The Washington Post says it all …
“For many decades, environmentalists have been sounding the alarm that people are destroying the Earth through their callous disregard of nature, because of the misguided thought that we are supposedly lords over the planet instead of another species that is PART of the planet.
People who think of themselves as separate from nature rather than part of it fall in to the dangerous assumption that they can just keep on killing off whatever plants and animals they want, in as large numbers as they want, without it affecting human life too.
For many decades, politicians have been ignoring these calls for people to have a greater respect for the natural world of which we are a part. For many decades, those calls have been answered with criticism from those who believe there should be no environmental regulations, no protections for wildlife, and that humans should be able to just destroy whatever they want, whenever they want, as often and as much as they want, because to them, making money by destroying the environment is awesome.
Now they’re going to learn the hard way that it’s not awesome at all. The environmentalists have been correct about this all along, and the greedy selfish people who think environmental regulations are bad just keep on trying to claim they’re not.”
This isn’t just another political issue. This should rise far above partisan politics, should take precedence over trade wars, over corporate profits, and every other issue, for frankly, if we don’t do this now, none of the rest will matter a whit by the end of the century. You won’t be around to see it nor will I, but our great-great-grandchildren will. Think about it.
Best Explanation EVER!
I happened across this Robert Reich video today, and I really hope you will all take a minute to watch it, then send a link to your friends who are still in denial over climate change. This is the best brief (2:30) explanation of how to respond to climate change deniers that I have ever seen/heard.
The Virtue of Stupidity
Once again, dear friend Hugh has hit the nail on the head regarding the dangerous attitudes of this nation toward addressing environmental issues, most notably climate change, or global warming. Please take a minute to read his excellent post … and make note of his new “law” at the end! Thank you, Hugh, for the post and the permission to share!
Temperatures around the country have recently been plunging and the nay-sayers once again point to the thermometer and tell us why they deny that the globe is warming. They ignore the fact that South Africa is experiencing the hottest summer on record and that what happens in Alabama or Alaska (or South Africa) is beside the point. Global Warming is a fact and it is not to be identified with passing weather events in particular parts of the world. Confusing the two and ignoring hard science are marks of the “virtue of stupidity” among those who remain with their heads in the sand — or somewhere equally dark. (This is a repost, which I have updated.)
In his remarkable book, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, Charles Pierce quotes Norman Myers of the Climate Institute who estimated that in 1995 [over twenty-four years ago!] there…
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What Better Way To Start Sunday — Toons!!!
And Speaking of Climate Change …
Cause of Death: Donald Trump
This column by The Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson speaks for itself … in fact, the title says it all …
Our planet is in crisis. We don’t have time for Trump’s foolishness.
Here is how to interpret the alarming new United Nations-sponsored report on global warming: We are living in a horror movie. The world needs statesmen to lead the way to safety. Instead, we have President Trump, who essentially says, “Hey, let’s all head to the dark, creepy basement where the chain saws and razor-sharp axes are kept. What could go wrong?”
The answer is almost everything, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The impact of human-induced warming is worse than previously feared, the report released Monday says, and only drastic, coordinated action will keep the damage short of catastrophe.
To this point, climate change has been a slow-motion calamity whose impacts, month to month and year to year, have been hard to perceive. Unfortunately, according to the report, that is about to change.
The burning of fossil fuels on an industrial scale has raised global temperatures by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. That may not sound like much, but look at the consequences we’re already seeing: Stronger, slower, wetter tropical storms. Unprecedented heat waves. Devastating floods. Dying coral reefs. A never-before-seen summer shipping lane across the Arctic Ocean.
Meanwhile, humankind continues to pump heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a tragically self-destructive rate. The IPCC calculates that a further temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius — almost inevitable, given our dependence on coal, oil and gas — would be challenging but manageable. An increase of about 2 degrees, however, would be disastrous.
What’s the difference? With a 1.5-degree rise, about 14 percent of the world’s population would be vulnerable to severe and deadly heat waves every five years; with a 2-degree rise, that figure jumps to 37 percent. With a 1.5-degree rise, an additional 350 million city dwellers worldwide will face water shortages; with a 2-degree rise, 411 million people will suffer such drought. With a 1.5-degree rise, coral reefs will experience “very frequent mass mortalities”; with a 2-degree rise, coral reefs will “mostly disappear.”
Small differences can have huge impacts. Under the 1.5-degree scenario, up to 69 million people will be newly exposed to flooding. Under the 2-degree scenario — which the report estimates would boost sea-level rise by as much as 36 inches — the number rises to 80 million.
Please don’t dismiss all of this as just another boring compendium of carefully hedged facts and figures. I have followed the IPCC’s research since covering the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The new report strikes a different tone that combines weary fatalism with hair-on-fire alarm. In dry, just-the-facts language, it predicts declining fisheries, failing crops, more widespread risk from tropical diseases such as malaria, economic dislocation in the most-affected countries — and, by logical extension, greater political instability.
All of these impacts are bad with 1.5 more degrees of temperature rise. With 2 degrees they are much, much worse.
The obvious solution is to dramatically reduce carbon emissions. The IPCC says emissions need to decline by at least 40 percent by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050, if we are to hold warming to 1.5 degrees. Yet last year, according to the International Energy Agency, global emissions hit an all-time high.
Since 2016, representatives of 195 nations — including all the big emitters — signed on to the landmark Paris agreement calling for systematic emissions reductions beginning in 2020. But Trump, who has ignorantly called climate change a “hoax,” decided to withdraw the United States from the pact. Even worse, Trump is aggressively trying to increase reliance on coal, which contributes a disproportionate amount of carbon dioxide emissions compared with other fossil fuels.
U.S. carbon emissions actually fell slightly in 2017, because of the expansion of the renewable energy sector. But Trump administration policies are designed to reverse that trend; and if they fail to do so, it will be because the rest of the world is already moving toward clean energy — a huge economic shift that threatens to leave the United States behind.
When you read the IPCC report, you see that what the world really needs is visionary leadership. As the world’s greatest economic power and its second-largest carbon emitter, the United States is uniquely capable of shepherding a global transition to renewable energy. Instead, the Trump administration rejects the science of climate change and actively favors dirty energy sources over clean ones.
Humanity has no time for such foolishness. “I’m the president of the United States. I’m not the president of the globe,” Trump thundered at a recent rally. On what planet does he think this nation resides?
Filosofa's Word 