Rick Perry vs. Climate Change

In this corner, I give you the latest pray for rain (among other things) Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, GOP Presidential candidate:

Perry calls global warming “all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight.” Unlike many of the other GOP presidential candidates, he hasn’t expressed concern about climate change in the past, so he won’t have to do any back-pedaling. Notorious climate denier Marc Morano is a big fan: “Based on climate views alone, anyone who is holding their nose voting for Mitt Romney because there’s no other viable candidate will now rejoice to have an option with Rick Perry.”

And in this corner — uh, a few facts:

1. July 2011 Fourth Hottest Month on Record

   Across the 48 coterminous United States, this past month ranks as the fourth-warmest July on record, with 41 of the 48 states having above-normal temperatures during July. The heat wave and drought centered in the Great Plains is the major cause.

   This was the hottest month on record across Texas and Oklahoma, where temperatures exceeded 100 degrees 30 of the 31 days in July. The report noted that unusually warm minimum temperatures were observed all across the central and eastern U.S., as has been increasingly typical of heat waves since the late 20th century.

2. Each of Last Threes Decades Warmest on Record

   Each of the last three decades has been much warmer than the decade before. At the time, the 1980s was the hottest decade on record. In the 1990s, every year was warmer than the average of the previous decade. The 2000s were warmer still.”The temperature increase of one degree Fahrenheit over the past 50 years may seem small, but it has already altered our planet,” said Deke Arndt, co-editor of the report and chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. “Glaciers and sea ice are melting, heavy rainfall is intensifying and heat waves are more common. And, as the new report tells us, there is now evidence that over 90 percent of warming over the past 50 years has gone into our ocean.”

3. Arctic Sea Ice set record low in July 2011

   This July, the sea ice extent was 81,000 square miles less than the previous low, set in 2007, and 842,000 square miles less than the average for 1979 to 2000, according to the monthly update from the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis web page. Based on the data gathered since 1979, Arctic sea ice is disappearing at a rate of about 6.8 percent each decade.

4. 
   Human Greenhouse Gas Emissions at All Time High

   Estimates from the International Energy Agency show that a whopping 30.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide was pumped into the atmosphere last year – a worrying rise of 1.6Gt on 2009.

   The IEA has warned that annual emissions should be no higher than 32Gt by 2020 if the world is to avoid the most damaging effects of global warming.

5. Solar Activity Not Causing Warming

   [B]etween the 1960s and the present day the same solar measurements have shown that the energy from the sun is now decreasing. At the same time temperature measurements of the air and sea have shown that the Earth has continued to become warmer and warmer. This proves that it cannot be the sun; something else must be causing the Earth’s temperature to rise.

6. 2011 Wildfire Season Already worse then all of 2010

   So far this year[i.e., through June 13, 2011], more than 4.1 million acres have burned, according to the daily Incident Management Situation Report (SIT). That’s more than 6,000 square miles and it’s more acreage scorched than in all of last year and more at this time of year than in any year in the last decade.

7. Extreme Weather Events Increasing As Predicted by Climate Change Models

   “You are seeing a pattern of changes in both frequency and intensity of extreme weather which is consistent with patterns you’d expect from climate change. We can see there has been a rise in global temp in the last century of .8 degrees, so you would expect a rise in the extremes as well.” […]

   “In the southwestern US we already had problems with lack of water and wildfires, but these problems are now intensified by climate change,” he said. “So climate change isn’t necessarily creating new phenomenon, but it is certainly bringing already existing situations to new levels.” […]

   “The fact is, when it comes down to it, with each of these [extreme weather] events, you can’t rule climate change out, and we are seeing changes consistent with climate change modelling,” he said. “Global average temperature has risen. It’s basic physics that a warmer atmosphere has more energy in it and can hold more water, so we’ll see more extreme precipitation events of flooding as well. These are all consistent with the patterns of global climate change.

8. Current Mass Extinction Linked to Man-Made Climate Change

   If the current actions contributing to a multifaceted degradation of the world’s oceans aren’t curbed, a mass extinction unlike anything human history has ever seen is coming, an expert panel of scientists warns in an alarming new report. […]

   The scientific panel concluded that degeneration in the oceans is happening much faster than has been predicted, and that the combination of factors currently distressing the marine environment is contributing to the precise conditions that have been associated with all major extinctions in the Earth’s history.

   According to the report, three major factors have been present in the handful of mass extinctions that have occurred in the past: an increase of both hypoxia (low oxygen) and anoxia (lack of oxygen that creates “dead zones”) in the oceans, warming and acidification. The panel warns that the combination of these factors will inevitably cause a mass marine extinction if swift action isn’t taken to improve conditions.

I could go on (and on and on …) with other well reported facts and findings that show climate change is real, and that it is largely driven by human activity (espectially the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal), of course. However, unless you believe Fox News “experts” or that God is deliberately behind the increase in frequency and intensity of the famines, droughts, wildfires, flooding and extreme weather patterns we have witnessed all over the globe over the last few decades (from Russia, China, Pakistan, the Himalayas, Mongolia, Greece, Australia, the North Pole, to —say it with me brothers and sisters –Texas) then you have to admit that Rick Perry is one ignorant, opportunistic, oil loving, hard-hearted SOB who doesn’t know his head from his ass when it comes to the single greatest threat to life on this earth.

Which means he will do very well in the Republican primaries, no doubt.