Call it “global warming,” call it “climate change,” call it whatever you want, but it’s here and it is unprecedented. Senator Jim Inhofe’s Oklahoma can expect potentially catastrophic flooding today. Maybe that is simply God’s inalterable plan for the Dust Bowl state, but I think the citizens of Oklahoma might want a senator who is interested in investigating the cause of these economically devastating changes in their climate. Heat and moisture records are being broken all over the country. It’s 44 degrees warmer than usual on Lake Superior. It was 94 degrees in parts of South Dakota yesterday. Spring came at least three weeks early here in eastern Pennsylvania.
Either we do something or we’re going to broil.
Either we do something or we’re going to broil.
Does Rockefeller and Manchin care yet? And does Manchin feel like an idiot yet, considering his infamous 2010 campaign commercial?
No, they don’t care, yet.
Which means nothing will be done. If those two refuse to get on board, there is no hope to get any corrupt GOPer on board.
The best thing we can do right now is protect the EPA. If the stated standards go through as followed, WV will be begging for cap and trade — in which case we might be able to get something better.
Agreed, keeping from sliding backward and reinforcing the tepid progress America has made in terms of weaning off gasoline is the best we can do in the next year.
With a new Congress though… one can hope we actually begin to do more than reduce the speed of our planet’s decline (not that I don’t enjoy this 70 degree March that NYC is having).
Well tbh, I think the EPA is better than cap and trade anyway. C&T is the only way coal survives…and I’d rather it die.
Yeah. Manchin is driving a lot of elected democratic officials (like me) absolutely insane with his monumental stupidity on almost every issue and relentless pandering to the worst instincts of West Virginians. He makes it difficult to even make the “well, he’s a checkmark in the D column so hold your nose and vote for him” argument.
Watching Rachel’s ladylike drilling of Imhoff on her show and his longwinded snake oil responses was truly painful. I keep meaning to go back and check his Financial Times articles he kept spouting as proof that the ClimateGate investigations, all 4 of ’em, were wrong. I’m sure that what he was quoting were articles written before the investigations then claiming they were written before. When does one call treason?
I was worried when Rachel announced that she was interviewing Inhofe. There is nothing to be gained by giving air time to someone who is either a consumate liar or utterly delusional. No debate is possible when the argument is “97% of scientists in the field see a problem” and “no they don’t I get call all the time from scientists who disagree and Nature is on the liberal side anyway so you can’t trust it.”
I could not care less about the fate of people who elect Inhofe to congress over and over again. if they wanted “a senator who is interested in investigating the cause of these economically devastating changes in their climate” they would elect one.
What I DO care about is where I live. If this summer is anything like last summer, it’s going to be horrible. I don’t know if you garden, but once the temps get above 90, the tomatoes won’t fruit, because they won’t self-pollinate. My hops are going to be very upset. we’re already going to have water problems because we didn’t have a winter this year, so no snowpack feeding the streams.
Climate change deniers are all alike. They just don’t want to know. When you get your information from the snark comments on Fox Opinion you don’t get facts, just bad opinion.
I’ve seen these personally: Armadillos in TN (very rare prior to 2005). Corn in North Ontario (couldn’t be raised prior to 1998). Desert Plants in South Georgia (was sub-tropical prior to 2002).
animal behavior:Red Foxes invading the Arctic. Starving walrus in the Bering Straights because of no ice floes. Marmots coming out of hibernation 10 days earlier than in 1980.
insect behavior:Fruit Flies being born with a “Desert Gene” in humid climates. Insect migrations and invasions of neighboring sub-climates.
Plant Behaviors:Plant hardiness maps have changed significantly since 1990
Of course, this won’t convince anyone. I know people who still think the first moon landing was a trick.
you know, at this point I honestly don’t care anymore. If humanity’s ranks have to be dramatically thinned out by a self-inflicted climate disaster in order to save the planet, fine.
As Louis CK once said (about having babies) “Fuck it. Fuck it.”
The sooner there are fewer of us -or even none of us- the sooner the planet can get on with healing itself.
fuck it. we get what we deserve.
The problem is that the vast majority of the people who will die from climate change will come in those parts of the “underdeveloped” world that had the least to do with perpetrating it. The perps – us – will be worried about our garden timelines, not widespread famine. And the biggest perps will laugh all the way to their Swiss banks (since the Caymans and Bahamas will be gone), secure in the knowledge that their hillside mansions will have brand new moats.
Sort of like how the 2008 economic meltdown worked, only on a much bigger scale.
i know, believe me, I know.
this is part of the reason i don’t blog anymore.
Broil is the option.
Now, Now you guys, “just because it’s warmer, doesn’t mean it’s getting warmer….it’s just warmer.” (actual statement by an acquaintance of mine).
But haven’t you all heard, it snowed in Arizona.
So, obviously, climate change is a hoax.
Silly libruhls.
It snowed in Flagstaff?! What next? Penguins in Antarctica?
From Wikipedia:
You’re right, of course. They will point to this as evidence it’s all a hoax.
we got a dusting in Tucson Sunday & yesterday, too š
Either we do something or we’re going to broil faster. The only question now is how soon and how quickly. We reached the point of no return sometime late in the Bush administration.
Of all the many crimes committed on Dubya’s watch, up to and including the genocide perpetrated against Iraqis, his obstruction of any action, global or national, on climate change was the biggest crime against humanity. By far.
We’ve certainly reached the point where you don’t need a bunch of complicated data models and a PhD to know the climate is changing. All you have to do is look out the window.
It must make for some pretty jarring segues on Fox News. In fact, they probably have to increase the dosage of denialist garbage whenever there are a bunch of headlines about catastrophic floods and tornadoes. People might start to wonder if climate science really is a liberal plot against freedom, especially as the headlines hit closer and closer to home. It’s a lot easier to convince someone that Barack obama is a Muslim socialist fascist atheist than it is to convince them that their house didn’t just wash away.