This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 30 Jun 2009, by Clay Burell.
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30 Jun 09
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The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists
expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying
rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe - a rise
in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable - can no longer be
considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome
if we continue along our present course.Thus researchers at M.I.T., who were previously predicting a
temperature rise of a little more than 4 degrees by the end of this
century, are now predicting a rise of more than 9 degrees. Why? Global
greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than expected; some
mitigating factors, like absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans,
are turning out to be weaker than hoped; and there's growing evidence
that climate change is self-reinforcing - that, for example, rising
temperatures will cause some arctic tundra to defrost, releasing even
more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. -
As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points
out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate
of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas,
and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves - the kind that
traditionally occur only once in a generation - may become annual or
biannual events.In other words, we're facing a clear and present danger to our way
of life, perhaps even to civilization itself. How can anyone justify
failing to act? - 2 more annotations...
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if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn't see people
who've thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the
right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of
being interested in the truth. They don't like the political and policy
implications of climate change, so they've decided not to believe in it
- and they'll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds
their denial.Indeed, if there was a defining moment in Friday's debate, it was
the declaration by Representative Paul Broun of Georgia that climate
change is nothing but a "hoax" that has been "perpetrated out of the
scientific community." I'd call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but
doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After
all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a
vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists - a cabal so powerful
that it has managed to create false records on everything from global
temperatures to Arctic sea ice.Yet Mr. Broun's declaration was met with applause.
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Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed
that terrorism posed an "existential threat" to America, a threat in
whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole - but the
existential threat from climate change is all too real.
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat,
placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because
it's in their political interest to pretend that there's nothing to
worry about. If that's not betrayal, I don't know what is.
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