The news about climate change keeps getting worse.
It’s not propaganda, it’s not a conspiracy by scientists worldwide to get grant money to go out into the field to do painstaking research.
Scientists don’t get rich that way, and they don’t get famous.
A climate change denier might argue that Al Gore profited off his movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘, but he didn’t make up the science. He’s not a scientist. And he was wrong. It’s far worse than he predicted.
Are you alarmed? Not nearly alarmed enough.
A new study published in the journal Science, coupled with graphs put together by Barry Saxifrage show an unprecedented shift in global warming.
One of the arguments from climate change deniers is that the Earth has been this hot before, so it’s natural, and not a problem. At least not a problem induced by people.
What they fail to take into account is that the speed in which the climate is changing is unprecedented.
Humans, as do all other animals, adapt to their environments. If the environment shifts faster than we can adapt to as a civilization, we perish, or at least we suffer greatly and find ourselves living in a wholly alien landscape than that which we’re used to.
Increased hurricanes and tornadoes, the rising of seas, droughts where previously lands flourished, and floods where previously the rainfall was relatively predictable.
Is a harsh winter reason enough to shrug off the threat of climate change?
It’s the oceans that warm first. Then the ice caps melt away. This allows more sunlight to invade the waters instead of reflecting off the caps and back into space.
More energy is then available for storms.
Sure, you might see an increased level of snow than you’re used to in the winter, but your subjective experience of one season in your tiny corner of the planet is nothing compared to the mountains of evidence scientists have come to an overwhelming consensus on.
Global temperatures rose slowly for thousands of years after the end of the last ice age. Temperatures peaked around 5,000 BC, at a level close to where we are today. Then temperatures declined slowly for thousands of more years.
Now, suddenly, the global temperature has started rocketing upwards. Far more troubling than the actual temperature is the fact that the changes are accelerating dramatically.
The century from 1860 to 1960 saw rapid warming. The next two decades more than doubled that warming. And then the next two decades – 1980 to 2000 – went ballistic, piling on thousands of years of warming.
[ Vancouverobserver.com ]
I recommend reading the entirety of the article where the above excerpt came from.
There’s no over selling the dramatic importance of tackling climate change. First, however, we need to recognize the debate is over.
Who truly stands to profit when it comes to the debate? Big oil companies and other fossil fuel industries. It’s not that difficult to figure it out. It should fall within the realm of common sense.
The Koch brothers, renowned for purchasing politicians and doing everything possible to keep climate change from being addressed, as it would – Thor forbid it – compromise their bottom line, commissioned a report that backfired against them.
Don’t be fooled, Fox News and the Koch brothers are not looking out for you. They do not care about you or the environment. They care about corporate profits, and we can’t breathe or eat those profits, so they avail us little.
Why the urgency?
Despite the recent Pegasus Pipeline spill in Arkansas the overwhelming majority of Americans still in support the XL Keystone Pipeline.
According to recent Rasmussen polls, 58% of the American public is in favor of going ahead with the project. Mother nature be damned.
Only 26% of the country is opposed.
The tar sands will release more green house gas emissions than any other fossil fuel. There is a high probability of future oil spills that will make regular crude oil look like maple syrup.
The Senate just did a symbolic vote with 62 in favor and and 37 oppose.
But it’s all up to President Obama now, for this is an executive decision. But with the American people in favor of the XL Keystone Pipeline along with the Senate, what hope is there that Obama will stand on principle on this issue?
With this evidence of a dramatic shift in global temperatures and Co2 emissions, the XL Keystone Pipeline could end up being the coup de gras to our environment.
Sound alarmist? Not nearly alarmist enough.