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Bill McKibben on Hurricane Sandy and Climate Change: "If There Was Ever a Wake-up Call, This Is It"
http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2012/10/29/bill_mckibben_on_hurricane_sandy_and
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Champion Jack
(5,378 posts)ErikJ
(6,335 posts)
Cha
(297,240 posts)
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)The best we'll be able to do is try to figure out how to adjust to the new normal, and there's essentially no hope of anything getting done to make that adjustment less traumatic and distastrous for the masses.
Profit rules.
demwing
(16,916 posts)we can affect it positively.
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)that an idea of mine will reverse Global Warming within 50 years of implementation.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)How are things these days?
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)I ordered the first 4 balloons, a cheap tesla coil corona cooler, and I picked up an arduino starter kit.
I had a family tragedy, so I've created a thesis deadline of may 21, 2013. Not done by the = quit and move on to the tech degree.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Also, May 21st? You've got about 6 months, and your idea does sound promising so please try not to give up on it entirely even if you do pass the deadline.
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)My father was a good man, who just happened to embody the American Dream.
As for the thesis, it's a different thing than the balloon project. (In this case Balloon = Maker brag rights. Thesis = Humanities project.)
demwing
(16,916 posts)can you reveal any of your idea?
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)basically, It's an Off the shelf technology collection of parts that harvests Atmosphere derived Methane and CO2, turns it into graphite, plastic, and light metals (from seawater) to make copies to itself.
Given doubling and a base rate of 60 tons of CO2/day, we'll stop global warming, and start reversing some of the effects in under 50 years.
That's the 2 cents tour.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)
Sorry about your loss!
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)My father was a good man, and the embodiment of the American dream. He was the son of a hard-working day laborer and a seamstress, both Southern Italian immigrants. He joined the Navy, and did well enough to enter - and later graduate - the Naval Academy.
The sticky point for this site, is he served as a Naval Combat Aviator.
We've already had the wake, but we have to wait until February for the Official Military funeral with Honors.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)I hate to say this but this kind of self-defeating attitude not only really hurts us in the long run, but also helps our enemies, because it makes us look weak, very weak.
There are people out there working on ways to mitigate this problem. Just look at this, for example:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solving-global-warming-not-easy-but-not-too-hard.html
And all too often, I see some truly well-meaning people falling into all sorts of traps. This attitude of "we can't do it" is definitely one of them. Here's a little wake up call:
A frequent skeptic argument is that solving the global warming problem will be "too hard", and thus we should just resign ourselves to trying to adapt to whatever climate change happens.
To offer an example, Christopher Booker, a 'skeptic', had this to say
"The fact is that there is no one in the world who can explain how we could cut our emissions by four fifths without shutting down virtually all our existing economy. What carries this even further into the higher realms of lunacy is that such a Quixotic gesture would do nothing to halt the world’s fast-rising CO2 emissions, already up 40 per cent since 1990. There is no way for us to prevent the world’s CO2 emissions from doubling by 2100"
I know it may seem to be a daunting task, and I do understand. We have many obstacles to overcome. But if we give up and give in now, then we will surely fail.
After all, Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't get anywhere by giving up on his cause. Neither did Rachel Carson, or the Patriots of the Revolutionary War, or the brave men who sacrificed themselves to fight fascism in WWII; or those Progressives and Socialists of all stripes who fought against child labor and for a 5-day workweek, etc. All of these people fought for what they knew was right, and they eventually won.
mahina
(17,659 posts)According to sir Nicholas Stern, the economics of climate change. You can catch his excellent. address to The Martin School on podcast. He identifies the 'we'll adapt' approach as reckless and unrealistic consideration the scale of the problem.
Nor saying we don't. also have to adapt.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)won't wake up repuke Virginians.
They are in total denial and have apparently lost the ability to think for themselves.
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)change, we whizzed through it in the blink of an eye, while we were all "debating" whether or not it was real. We here in the midwest, like so many areas of the country, experienced the hottest summer on record, and repeatedly broke records throughout the summer. That alone causes us to burn more energy, which of course adds to the problem. We could have been 100% energy independent decades ago. You all know the story.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)
blackspade
(10,056 posts)If you are familiar with Panarchy, we are entering the omega phase.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)NYC is in a lot of icons.
mick063
(2,424 posts)Polar Bears and Arctic Fox quicker than you can bat an eye.
Profit rules and after we have ravaged earth, we will venture into space and ravage the universe because God has deemed it our domain.
We are that scary, exploitive, expansionist, extra terrestrial race you read about in science fiction novels.
Lord help us when we alarm the bejesus out of some alien encounter.
left on green only
(1,484 posts)Hence the creation of my DU tag line. Confession: I am really not a dem., but rather I am a member of the Green Party. But that's OK....same side of the fence.
demwing
(16,916 posts)we look inside of ourselves, find those parts of ourselves that terrify us with what we might be, and attempt to exorcize those demons through our art
spanone
(135,838 posts)
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Sorry, but it was.
As was Hugo.
Jennicut
(25,415 posts)Just the sheer size of it, not what Category of storm it was. If a Cat 4 hit NYC, the NJ shoreline and the CT shoreline along with MD and DE the death toll and destruction would be huge. The east coast is the most heavily populated area in the US. That is what is scary. A more powerful storm could have made storm surges of up to 20 feet, not 13 feet along Long Island Sound. 13 feet was bad enough!
glowing
(12,233 posts)Cat 3 or 4 or 5? That was a 1. That is what the gulf can get with out very heated waters of the summer. It's lucky that it moves off the Gulf Stream and met up with some colder water. Crazy storm, but that's what a storm is. It's not a joke.