The debate's over: Globe is warming

[True_Blue]

Don't look now, but the ground has shifted on global warming. After decades of debate over whether the planet is heating and, if so, whose fault it is, divergent groups are joining hands with little fanfare to deal with a problem they say people can no longer avoid.

General Electric is the latest big corporate convert; politicians at the state and national level are looking for solutions; and religious groups are taking philosophical and financial stands to slow the progression of climate change.

They agree that the problem is real. A recent study led by James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies confirms that, because of carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases, Earth is trapping more energy from the sun than it is releasing back into space.

The U.N. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global temperatures will rise 2 to 10 degrees by 2100. A "middle of the road" projection is for an average 5-degree increase by the end of the century, says Caspar Amman of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

more....
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-12-global-warming-cover_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

[Maestro]

1. Shrub will still say that the problem needs to be researched more.

That is excuse for not taking any action against his fossil burning buddies.

[acmavm]

2. Great. Now someone convince Emperor Cuckoo Bananas.

.

[Geo55]

3. Well , we could use the last of the declining world oil

an' build BIG fans an' cool it all down.

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. chimp takes his council from exxon/mobil, so far they are just

getting organized to undertake a study, it will take a few/10+ years make any conclusions. Ya see, research is "hard work."

[Up2Late]

5. Welcome to reality USA TODAY, this study was released 2-3...

...months ago. I can't believe they at talking like this is New News.

[Porcupine]

6. Climate change is ruining crops in my neighborhood

I live in the Northern Sacremento Valley, Chico CA. In my area summer used to start in late April when the last rain would fall and then it would be dry as a bone till October. This allowed all sorts of things to grow and harvest as long as they were irrigated.

The last few years the rains have stretched into May and June. This means that cherries burst and apricots are ruined by hail. The other night we had a summer thunderstorm; absolutely unheard of in these parts.

Global Warming aka Climate Change is going to visit you too. Just wait.

[kineneb]

7. Hi neighbor, from across the hills

We are in Lake County. Up until last week it was still spring here. It finally warmed up enough to actually need the AC occasionally this week. But, yes, the springs have been really wet for the last several years. I am a native, from Redding and a CSUC alum. I don't remember this much rain this late in the season when I was a child. It messed up the pears up here, but because our growing season starts about a month behind the valley, the cherry tree in my yard didn't seem to mind.

[Carolab]

9. Here in the upper midwest we have significant moisture increase

as well...lots cooler and more rain this spring and early summer than I have seen in a long time. Lots of farmers couldn't get the crops in in time. I read a report that this isn't just a normal "variation" but part of an emerging pattern of more moisture and warmer temperatures year round. Winters are getting much milder and much shorter. Summers, because of the moisture, are comparable to the "tropics". It's already visiting us.

[Dogmudgeon]

12. That's a major change for Chico

I used to live in Chico in the middle 1980s. I've been keeping an eye on the Pacific weather patterns, and they have been getting as strange as the weather anywhere else, but hearing your description brings it home. Rainy season in June? I remember that the winter rains were over in February or March.

I was there over two summers, and I remember ONE thunderstorm. Bone dry is right -- but the good part is that it could be 105F and old-fashioned evaporative "swamp" coolers would work better than air conditioners.

Here, on the East Coast, near Philly, our seasons seem pushed forward by 4-6 weeks now. We just had our first heat wave here. Winter starts later as a rule, ends late, springs have been cold and lasted until mid-June, and summers also end later in the year. It's what I would expect from a more active (i.e., warmer) atmosphere.

One year of this would be nothing to worry about, but it's been "trending" that way since the 1990s. It's more than an anecdote now, but have these changes been shown to have any significance? I would guess that the jury will still be out for a few more years.

Sad, too -- the last time I checked the Chico web site, I saw that the town council had gone really conservative. I used to date one of the high muckety-mucks' daughters. Liberal Christian gal. I can imagine how Daddykins changed in 20 years (and he was a pretty decent fellow then, too). Maybe I'm wrong, but cynicism has been too accurate for me, alas.

Time is not playing any nice tricks on us!

--p!

[doodadem]

25. Same here

We're in the mountains above the San Joaquin Valley, central Calif. We've lived here 4 years. The first 3 years, were "typical", per the old timers here (except for that monster blizzard the first winter). You have desert conditions from May thru Oct. Start getting the rains and light snow, Dec. thru March. This past year, the rains started in Oct., and just kept getting heavier and heavier thru April. We were swamped! Yes, everything is greener longer, quite beautiful. But along with the bumper crop of wildflowers, we're also inundated with mosquitoes and flies.

[shanti]

32. sac here too

and i totally agree with your assessment. i've lived in the sac valley since 1984 and remember how the weather used to be. by mid may it was always very hot, but the weather patterns have definitely changed in the last 5 years or so. i don't ever remember rain in june and the heat we have now is much more humid. sac was always known for its "dry" heat.

i'm not sure i like this change:-(

[olddad56]

8. They will deal with Global warming as soon as ....

The slimeball corporations like GE can make a buck pretending to do so meting about it. When there is big money on easing global warming, The corporate fascists will declare war on Global Warming.

" The biggest problem facing the world today is the environment" - Al Gore 2000 Presidential Debates.

[oscar111]

10. ORBITING SUNSHADE needed: Kyoto too slow, nations not do what pledged 2 do

the kyoto wrangling is too slow. unreliable.

Pay NASA to put up orbiting sunshade.. several types possible, from large reflecting foil a million miles up in geostationary orbit, to ship-gun launched white powder in low orbit {artificial clouds}.

Lawrence-livermore nat'l labs looking into it. google for CBS newes page on the idea.

create NASA jobs. Cool earth ends most tornadoes, all hurricanes too.
Saves billions of folks in hot nations, ends chaos of northward streaming immigrants fleeing heat and crushing texas, arkansas, kansas et et et.

Kyoto sadly too slow, if ever effective. Nations do not cooperate well.

Sunshade works whatever the cause, man or volcanoes.

[oscar111]

11. SUNSHADE link

CBS News | Cooling The Planet | January 15, 2001 20:51:15

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/01/15/archive/main264362.shtml Changed:12:42 AM on Monday, June 13, 2005

As to cost, consider the cost of refugees streaming into cool states.. north CA, oregon, illinois, virginia, NY. ouch

plus, hot earth burns crops with IR rays. No food, my friend. No food.

Get that sunshade up NOW.

[Dogmudgeon]

13. I pray not

Messing with the heat balance has already gotten us into more trouble than we can deal with easily. Cooling the Earth to the degree that tornadoes and hurricanes would be suppressed would be a dangerous experiment to try. Climate is a chaotic system and has been "bistable" -- flip-flopping betweeen two states -- for over 2.2 million years. In addition, cooler atmosphere would cause a dramatic increase in precipitation through condensation.

Wallace Broecker (Lamont-Doherty) and Robert Gagosian (Woods Hole) and their teams have assembled massive evidence that even our current warming phase could push the equilibrium to the cold phase. I would want a whole lot more study done before we put any sunshields in space.

--p!

[Dogmudgeon]

14. Oh ... it's one of Teller's wild-assed schemes

Dr. Edward Teller, one of the Father(s) of the H-Bomb, who has advocated pre-emptive nuclear warfare, using aircraft contrails to spray powdered metal into the sky to reflect the sunlight back into space (probably causing the "chemtrails" panic), and massive genetic engineering. He was the role model Stanley Kubrick used for Dr. Strangelove.

No wonder it sounded so wacky and dangerous.

--p!

[dbt]

16. And people insisted it was not happening!

Go figure.

[llmart]

17. Rush Limpballs says there's no such thing as global warming........

so there!

And we know how educated and scientific minded he is.

[Hand]

24. Sounds like Teller, all right.

The original Dr. Strangelove and inventor of the term "megadeaths." Truly an evil son of a bitch.

[MisterP]

30. Mein Führer, I can walk!

[hatrack]

31. Oh, not to worry!

This time we know what we're doing. Really. No, really, we DO!

[shadowknows69]

15. I'd like to thanks everyone involved

for letting another thing get to crisis levels before dealing with it. Assholes.

[Demeter]

18. What's With USA Today?

All of a sudden, USAT isn't ass-kissing: stories that have factual information, instead of White House spin, are ending up on the front page, even if they contradict der Fuhrer!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

19. The corporations that own the media may have had enough of the....

...empty promises of the NeoCons.

If so, we can count on stories like this snowballing until Emperor Cuckoo for Cocoa-Puffs resigns or is impeached.

If not, the silence from the media will be deafening.

[liberalcenter]

20. Hang it around their neck.

We should bring Global Warming up for decades, even after they admit it's real.

20 years from now we should still bring this up..

Also, is this the problem when we have sinners in office, waiting for word from God on global warning?

[shadowknows69]

22. 20 years ago people were bringing it up n/t

[struggle4progress]

29. Arrhenius started bringing it up around 1900. eom

[speedingbullet]

21. Glad That's Settled

Now maybe we can try to figure out if germs really cause disease and whether Iraq is a quagmire.

[patcox2]

23. GE builds Nuke plants, its a cynical political move by GE, yeesh.

The article makes a big deal that GE is "the latest corporate convert." As if they don't have a huge vested interest.

From what I understand of the topic, there has never been much debate about warming. The only debate is whether the warming is caused by human activity, particularly the use of fossil fuels, or is some natural climate cycle thing.

[mom cat]

27. They are also heavily into wind generation and stand to make a heafty

profit from emerging alternative energy.

[RedCloud]

26. Warming, so it can freeze over!

Salt water has its salinity changed by ice water melt off. Ocean conveyor belts shut down and stops stirring warm with cold. Much of the planet will freeze. Equator may be too hot to survive either.

I'll try to post the link here:

http://www.williamcalvin.com/1990s/1998AtlanticClimate.htm

«When the warm currents penetrate farther than usual into the northern seas, they help to melt the sea ice that is reflecting a lot of sunlight back into space, and so the earth becomes warmer. Eventually that helps to melt ice sheets elsewhere.

The high state of climate seems to involve ocean currents that deliver an extraordinary amount of heat to the vicinity of Iceland and Greenland. Like bus routes or conveyor belts, ocean currents must have a return loop. Unlike most ocean currents, the North Atlantic Current has a return loop that runs deep beneath the ocean surface. Huge amounts of seawater sink at known downwelling sites every winter, with the water heading south when it reaches the bottom. When that annual flushing fails for some years, the conveyor belt stops moving and so heat stops flowing so far north-and apparently we're popped back into the low state.»


I was searching for a more recent Japanese study, but alas and alack.

[Massachusetts]

33. Bingo!

[0rganism]

28. GE sees both threats to capital and investment opportunities

They're getting on board with climate change now because there's money to be had in it: nuke plants to be built, late-adapting competitors to be swallowed, regulation-rich foreign markets to be penetrated, low-altitude real-estate to be shored up.

The fact that they're acting now tells me that it's very close to too late. If they'd done something earlier, perhaps the trend could have been reversed, and there's no economic profit in that.