Ignoring the Obvious

[G_j]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/news_at_11_how_climate_change_affects_you_20100810/

News at 11: How Climate Change Affects You

Posted on Aug 10, 2010

By Amy Goodman

Our daily weather reports, cheerfully presented with flashy graphics and state-of-the-art animation, appear to relay more and more information.

And yet, no matter how glitzy the presentation, a key fact is invariably omitted. Imagine if, after flashing the words “extreme weather” to grab our attention, the reports flashed “global warming.” Then we would know not only to wear lighter clothes or carry an umbrella, but that we have to do something about climate change.

I put the question to Jeff Masters, co-founder and director of meteorology at Weather Underground, an Internet weather information service. Masters writes a popular blog on weather, and doesn’t shy away from linking extreme weather to climate change:

“Heat, heat, heat is the name of the game on planet Earth this year,” he told me, as the world is beset with extreme weather events that have caused the death of thousands and the displacement of millions.


<snip>

Masters relates stark statistics:

* 2010 has seen the most national extreme heat records for a single year: 17.

* The past decade was the hottest decade in the historical record.

* The first half of 2010 was the warmest such six-month period in the planet’s history.

* The five warmest months in history for the tropical Atlantic have all occurred this year (likely leading to more frequent and severe Atlantic hurricanes).

“We will start seeing more and more years like this year when you get these amazing events that caused tremendous death and destruction,” Masters said. “As this extreme weather continues to increase in the coming decades and the population increases, the ability of the international community to respond and provide aid to victims will be stretched to the limit.”

And yet the U.N. talks aimed at climate change seem poised for collapse.

..more..

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/12-5


Published on Thursday, August 12, 2010 by Al Jazeera

Ignoring the Obvious: The Floods and Fires, the Droughts and Disasters Will Continue

by Alan Fisher

You may know I've just returned from Niger. There, tens of thousands of people are facing extreme hunger because of the droughts of the last two years.

The rainy season is under way but the rains around the capital of Niamey have been torrential and persistent. It's not what is needed. The water is not nourishing the soil. It's washing away the crops. It's washing away homes. It is destroying lives.

The trouble there comes as Pakistan struggles to cope with the worst floods since the creation of the state. Millions of people are homeless. The UN predicts the devastation will be worse than the Asian Tsunami, which struck several countries.

Torrential rain has swept through China. The official death toll is creeping up all the time. It is going to be in the thousands. Mudslides have brought havoc to many places across the country's northwest.

<snip>

Yet despite the evidence of floods and flames, of drought and danger, there is no concerted international action towards reaching an agreement on the best way to fight climate change.

..more..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8925101

Greenland ice sheet faces 'tipping point in 10 years'

Scientists warn that temperature rise of between 2C and 7C would cause ice to melt, resulting in 23ft rise in sea level

* Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 August 2010 19.29 BST

The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C, with severe consequences for the rest of the world, a panel of scientists told Congress today.

Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century last week, and faces an even grimmer future, according to Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University

"Sometime in the next decade we may pass that tipping point which would put us warmer than temperatures that Greenland can survive," Alley told a briefing in Congress, adding that a rise in the range of 2C to 7C would mean the obliteration of Greenland's ice sheet.

The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23ft (7 metres), Alley warned. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish.

"What is going on in the Arctic now is the biggest and fastest thing that nature has ever done," he said.

..more..

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Wonder if the repukes will still be ignoring global climate change when the human race starts facing

extinction.

[Forkboy]

2. K&R

[Hell Hath No Fury]

3. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, G_j.

[G_j]

7. you're welcome

thanks for the interest.

[Capitalocracy]

5. Here in Argentina there's a channel that actually does that.

Not specifically "global warming", but when there are a lot of severe weather stories close together they put up a graphic of the Earth with a red background and it's like melting and being distorted and waving around and there's a dramatic chord and an announcer with a movie trailer narrator voice says "¿QUE PASA CON EL MUNDO?" (what's wrong with the world?) and after they give the story it says "SOMOS TODOS CULPABLES." (we're all guilty).

[LWolf]

6. I'm seriously worried about winters.

The last 2 winters have seen unusually cold spells that froze my pipes for 2 weeks the winter before last, and a week last winter.

Broken pipes cost money; I repaired the main line under the house and one of the supposed "frost free" hydrants, but couldn't afford to repair the other 2.

My pipes aren't deep enough. They need to be 4 ft deep to be below the frost line in this area, and they aren't. I know why; there's a bit on thin soil on top of a bed of rock in this volcanic area, and to get any deeper, they would have had to blast. They took the cheap way.

It's about 250 feet from the well to the house, and another 150 to the barn. That's a lot of blasting. There's no way I can afford to replace pipes at this point.

It's a miserable way to spend winter, driving a 15 mile round-trip to my son's for a shower, and hauling water to flush toilets and water stock.

Climate change means change; while it's heating up overall, it seems to be cooling in some areas.

Actually, last winter was unusually mild, though, EXCEPT for the one frozen week. Mild enough to get the buds on the trees swelling uncharacteristically early. Then we returned to frozen conditions in the spring. So, maybe it's not cooling. Maybe we're just seeing more extremes in an area of high desert that is already characterized by extreme temperature swings.