DemocracyNow covering Extreme Weather / Global Warming connections...

[Junkdrawer]

http://www.democracynow.org/live-stream

...part of the discussion: Why the Corporate Media belittles anyone who points out said connections.

[Junkdrawer]

1. Transcript is up now...

....

AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think this lack of coverage, of making the connection? I mean, the coverage of the extreme weather is pervasive; it is extensively covered on all of the networks.


JOSEPH ROMM: Well, there is a couple of reasons, one of which is—and if you read the work of Ross Gelbspan, a Pulitzer Prize- winning reporter from Boston, he talks about how those who oppose action on global warming and those who are skeptical of global warming have worked very hard to attack the media whenever they point out this connection. I think—so I do think that that is part of the reason.


I also think that part of the reason is that the people who write about global warming for most newspapers and TV are not the same people as those who tend to cover weather. You know, the New York Times has a reporter who covers global warming, and he’s quite good, but he is not the guy who goes to Iowa to write about the flooding there. So I think this is a failure of the editors at newspapers, whose job is to sort of assign reporters and look at the big picture. And I say this as someone—my father was a newspaper editor for thirty years, so that was his job, was to figure out the big picture and educate his readers.


AMY GOODMAN: And what is the connection, for example, between the wildfires that have raged in places like Santa Cruz to Sacramento, to the flooding we see in Iowa, to what’s happening now in China, the very place where the earthquake devastated Sichuan province, now the terrible rains and flooding?


JOSEPH ROMM: Well, I think global warming puts more water vapor into the atmosphere, and so you are—what you are expected to see is more rain, but not just any type of rain, but rain that comes in very intense downpours over one or two days, you know, that we would call deluges. So that is something we expect.


Wildfires are quite interesting, because they have multiple causes. Obviously, when it’s dry and hasn’t rained for awhile and the soil is drier, you’re going to see wildfires. But the other thing that has occurred across much of the country and Canada is that pests, particularly the so-called bark beetle, used to be wiped out in the winter—the larvae used to be wiped out by very cold winters, but since winters aren’t as cold anymore, the larvae survive. So we’ve had these huge infestations of bark beetles that, for instance, have pretty much—they’re on track to a wipe out every harvestable pine tree in British Columbia. And when you combine drier soil with more pests, and the trees, of course, need water to produce the sap to fight off the beetles.

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http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/16/extreme_weather_global_warming_floods_in

[Uncle Joe]

2. Thank you for this compelling transcript and the thread, Junkdrawer.

Kicked and recommended.:thumbsup:

[Tashca]

3. Extremely good and timely!!!

Must read!!

kick and rec!