Good News: Warmest temperatures in a decade in the northeast mean that millions of people will pay less for heating their homes.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – This is turning out to be the warmest day in parts of the U.S. Northeast in more than a decade, according to weather forecasters.
The Northeast is the world’s biggest heating oil market.
DTN Meteorlogix said the mercury in New York City, the biggest population center in the Northeast, would reach 61 degrees F Wednesday, well above a normal high of 48 degrees for this time of year.
You know, my heating bills have been lower than the last several years so far. So what’s the bad news? It’s only going to get hotter in the years to come because the proposed green house gas emissions cuts are far too low to prevent global warming from rising at an ever faster rate:
WASHINGTON — Promises by the U.S. and other industrialized countries to cut the emissions causing global warming are insufficient to avoid the worst effects of climate change, the United Nations climate chief said Wednesday. […]
“The air and the oceans are warming, mountain glaciers are disappearing, sea ice is shrinking, permafrost is thawing, the great land ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica are losing mass, and sea level is rising,” [John Holdren, the top scientist at the White House] said in the testimony he submitted for the hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
“We know the primary cause of these changes beyond any reasonable doubt. It is the emission of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants . . . and from deforestation and other forms of land-use change that move carbon out of soils and vegetation and into the atmosphere.”
The vast majority of scientists who’ve studied the climate judge that failure to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases quickly “is overwhelmingly likely to lead to changes in climate too extreme and too damaging to be adequately addressed by any adaptation measures that can be foreseen,” Holdren said.
Hey, even the Governator agrees with them deceitful, lying eco-terrorist climatologists:
In 2100, Fisherman’s Wharf would become Fisherman’s Bay, the baseball diamond at AT&T Park would flood and two major Bay Area airports would better serve seaplanes under a climate change model unveiled Wednesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Google.
The governor released a new report determining that global warming, left unabated, would lead to higher sea levels, greater wildfire risks and less water supply over the next century, based on research compiled by the California Energy Commission.
You know that story about the ant and the grasshopper? We are all grasshoppers now, my friends, when it comes to global climate change. But hey, I’m saving money this year so who cares? Right?
Oh, and Ahnold? Prepare to be teabagged buddy.
Let’s hope today’s temperatures aren’t actually the warmest in a decade, Steven! That would mean we’re looking at the possibility of over 100 degrees!
🙂
Seriously, though — climate change effects are current & immediate for my very own area of New York State. Aside of the immensely destructive flooding that’s taken place in the Catskill region in recent years — I became homeless due to the flooding in ’06 — declining snowfall amounts are bad news for a water supply that not only provides sustenance for our plant & animal life, but provides absolutely clean water (through our reservoirs) for the entire NYC metro area, as well as major metro centers in PA & NJ.
Additionally, we’re almost certainly looking at the possibility of widespread drilling for natural gas within the next decade. Current gas extraction practices require the use of tens of millions of gallons of water per week, per well. If declining snowpack levels mean declining water availability, is it going to come down to a fight for water between our major cities & the corporate entities meant to answer for a 100 year economic depression? Egad.
Well, warmest for this time of year. Gotta allow for some things to be assumed, right?
😉
Warmest for this time of year for now.
🙂
Hope you know I’m just kiddin’ with you.
You’d think that a person that calls him/herself “conservative” would find long-term planning comforting.
Irony in the good news. To the extent that the Northeast is still dependent on fossil fuels for heat, not heating as much reduces the greenhouse gases given off for this year.
Definitely not enough, however.
No definitely not enough.
Uh, we’re a hot country already. And those on the mainland will no doubt be running their AC’s lots longer.
In the mean time, I’ll watch while our island’s remnant Gondwanaland species succumb to the increasing dry spells. We’ve lost at least a dozen mature trees on our 15 acre property in the last year alone – these were among the lucky ones that were too inaccessible be felled properly when this area was logged bout 40 years ago. There’s little chance now of ever having forest giants standing here again.