The mainstream media if finally catching up to the blogosphere on the importance of the UN assessment of global climate change. Although, the Koch Brothers, other fossil fuel producers, their bought Republican (and a few Democratic) lackeys, and their media echo chamber continue to deny it, their lies are getting harder to sell, because the effects are now hitting people where they live.
The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States, scientists reported Tuesday, with water growing scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains increasing in wet regions, heat waves becoming more common and more severe, wildfires growing worse, and forests dying under assault from heat-loving insects.
Such sweeping changes have been caused by an average warming of less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit over most land areas of the country in the past century, the scientists found. If greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane continue to escalate at a rapid pace, they said, the warming could conceivably exceed 10 degrees by the end of this century.
“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” the scientists declared in a major new report assessing the situation in the United States.
“Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of unusual heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced,” the report continued. “Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours. People are seeing changes in the length and severity of seasonal allergies, the plant varieties that thrive in their gardens, and the kinds of birds they see in any particular month in their neighborhoods.”… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
Click through for much more information.
The effects I have noticed personally here in Oregon is that summers have gotten hotter and winters have grown both shorter and colder in the time I have loved here, and this is one of the places where the effects have been rather moderate compared to other places.
At the very minimum, the US government must end all tax breaks and subsidies for fossil fuel producers.
I would also assess every Republican and DINO politician a Methane Tax equal to the amount of the contributions, perquisites, and third party advertising they get from fossil fuel polluters to cover the cost of their BS.
11 Responses to “Climate Change Is Now”
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The most noticeable change here is the increased intensity of the storms, especially the wind. It seems to start blowing every day around 10 AM with gusts 30 to 40 mph. It stops around 6 PM. We don't need storms for the wind to blow. It just blows every day. This in turn dries out the land. Our reservoirs are lower than ever also due to winter snowfall decreasing. Flooding has increased after storms because the land is so dry the water just washes away instead of soaking in.
Young people don't notice the changes but I've been on this Earth since 1950 and I see it.
So many studies have been done, so much information has been produced to show that science has not been wrong. Anyone with TV or radio advertising that speaks to climatic changes being a normal change in the earth, is intentionally misleading the public. That means you, Koch brothers and your accomplices in crime. This denial is criminal. We can actually take apart various elements of climatic changes to see what is reacting with what element. Fossil fuels could almost be managed if we had the once lush green forests all over the globe. The forests are almost gone. What is left is already scheduled for destruction.
Some things that play into the changes, as things have warmed, certain pests have increased their reproductive season. An example is the Pine beetle, this little bug infests the pine tree, and kills the tree. Because it had one season for reproduction, it was mostly ignored. Entomologist began to notice that the beetle increased it's reproductive seasons with a warming climate and therefore, was increasing in numbers and killing more trees. Dead trees feed the size and scope of wild fires, just as drought feeds the fires.
The point is not that we all need to know each little detail, though that information is available, but rather to indicate that each part of the picture has been examined to understand the many facts that together accumulate to give us the umbrella words climate change.
Combined together by financing from the Koch brothers there are numerous groups; ALEC, David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity Foundation, FreedomWorks, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, the Cato Institute and The Heritage Foundation, State Policy Network. All keep their contributors private. All work in an effort to destroy any form of taxation or regulation that can only protect the rest of us.
One light is the story of Kansas and their ultra conservative mission to free Kansas from the grip of any taxes. The governor and his majority in the House and Senate of Kansas, voted in a massive tax cut, and what do you, the state can no longer meet it's own financial commitments. No revenue, and the state can not even make payroll. This is not a single example but rather one of many examples. The up side is the people of Kansas are angry, what they will do in 2014 will determine the far reaching goals of that state.
Discussions of climate change are no longer about how to prevent this from happening but rather, it is here and how do we deal with this now. Climate change is going to present some strange and unexpected conditions. Some areas that do not see flooding will have occasional extreme flooding, this will occur even as the massive south and southeastern drought grows.
TC, I thought you were busy with your training today. Thanks for the article and allowing me to rant.
Reference to Kansas tax cut, Here is a more detailed report from Rachel Maddow:
Rachel Maddow 05/07/14
Right’s anti-tax dream an economic nightmare
Dave Helling, columnist for the Kansas City Star, talks with Rachel Maddow about the economic damage inflicted on the state of Kansas by radical tax cuts following a right-wing takeover of the state government and similarities to developments in Missouri.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/rights-anti-tax-dream-an-economic-nightmare-249793091901
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Thanks Jim. Very interesting. The Kansas state tax burden is born very, very disproportinately by the middleclass and poor, and will bankrupt the state. Brownback is a Republicanus/Teabagger idiot, perhaps even guilty of sedition if one accepts the following definition:
When services are rolled back, schools closed because they can not be funded etc, there will be hostility towards the state. And of course, where are the Koch Industry offices? . . . Witchita, Kansas.
Kitty sometimes it get's confusing, as I am already writing for the next day'a articles, which I post at midnight, or as soon thereafter as I can. Thank you for a most excellent rant that insipred great comments from Jim and Lynn.
Gene J (Care2) mentions having multiple seasons in a single day.In Colorado we have had a joke for decades "You know you're in Colorado if … you use your car's heater and air conditioner in the same day." Both calendar spring and calendar fall are like that. I always figured that because the atmosphere is thinner we heat up faster during the day and lose more heat at night. I didn't realize lower altitudes are now experiencing these patterns. Of course this is not MORE scary than everything else about climate change, but it is scary.
I hear that about Colorado. On more than one occasion I was doing a shirtles barbecue in Denver, a storm came down deom the mountains and dumped in inch of hail stione. And that was back in the 1970s.
“There is mounting evidence that harm to the nation will increase substantially in the future unless global emissions of heat-trapping gases are greatly reduced,”
This is a global problem without doubt. But it is like a jigsaw puzzle because each and every nation has and is playing a part. We saw the effect of the jetstream in transporting radiation from Chernobyl to North America. I believe that emissions from North America are partially to blame for some of the severe weather in Europe. We are all connected.
It is time to do our part for the health of the planet, because it is the only one we have.
Bingo!
It boggles the mind that our politicians continue to deny climate change when the evidence is obvious. We had snow earlier this year than I can ever remember, and it lasted longer. Last week I needed heat, this week it has been in the high eighties. Even the Kochs won't be able to escape when the whole world is turned upside down.
It seems we all have experience local effects.