Posts tagged climate change
married to trouble
How did your brain even learn human speech? I'm just so curious.
North Carolina strikes again, considers outlawing accurate predictions of sea level rise
When things get tough, lawmakers get creative. Faced with predictions that sea levels in the coastal areas of North Carolina will rise by a meter in the next century, legislators are considering bold action: making those predictions illegal. A bill being circulated in the Tarheel state would force scientists to estimate future sea levels on a linear path based on trends since 1900 — in other words, based on the simple assumption that trends always move in a straight line, no matter what.
Over in Scientific American, Scott Huler has some things to say about this:
Which, yes, is exactly like saying, do not predict tomorrow’s weather based on radar images of a hurricane swirling offshore, moving west towards us with 60-mph winds and ten inches of rain. Predict the weather based on the last two weeks of fair weather with gentle breezes towards the east. Don’t use radar and barometers; use the Farmer’s Almanac and what grandpa remembers.
Things like marriage rules involve changing social mores and those who feel that certain types of marriage are wrong can be understood and even forgiven. They’re certainly on the wrong side of history, but it’s a social issue where emotion understandably holds sway over things like evidence.
But while the rising sea may engender emotion, it exists in a world of fact, of measurable evidence and predictable results, where scientists using their best methods have agreed on a reasonable – and conservative – estimate of a meter or more of rising seas in the coming century. In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave a hesitant estimate of up to 59 centimeters of rise -but even two years later that estimate already appeared low and scientists began to expect a rise of a meter or more.
No matter in North Carolina. We’ve got resorts to build and we don’t care what the rest of the ocean does – our sea isn’t going to rise by more than 15.6 inches. Because otherwise it’s against the law.
Huler’s amazing rant is well worth reading in its entirety. [Scientific American]
Outlawing accurate science and public interest in the name of money!
Good sweet baby jeebus.
My first thought on seeing this headline was “oh of fucking course, because we can’t have our million dollar beach homes and tourism trade disrupted.”
I feel like I have to take issue with even comparing this to marriage rights, though? I mean it seems to me that the two are entirely unrelated. Why does Amendment One even need to be brought into this discussion?
Granted, I can see both things as being incredibly embarrassing for NC on the whole, this is true.
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Santorum Takes Climate Change Denial To A Biblical LevelClimate change denial has become a litmus test for modern Republicans, but Rick Santorum, in his fondness for melding faith and government, has become one of the precious few to cite the Bible as evidence that the science-accepting crowd has it all wrong — and apparently the first to bring that thinking to the presidential stage.
“We were put on this Earth as creatures of God to have dominion over the Earth, to use it wisely and steward it wisely, but for our benefit not for the Earth’s benefit,” Santorum told a Colorado crowd earlier this month.
He went on to call climate change “an absolute travesty of scientific research that was motivated by those who, in my opinion, saw this as an opportunity to create a panic and a crisis for government to be able to step in and even more greatly control your life.”
THE ENTIRE WORLD IS WATCHING THIS HAPPEN IN AMERICA! THE ENTIRE WORLD! Yes that was in all caps because I was yelling. I’m so embarrassed and I’m not the one saying this shit. But people will say, “Americans are stupid” not just Santorum and his ilk. I can’t not blog about politics because our politicians have turned into televangelists. Un-freaking-believable! ~ Kim
I can’t tell if my face is red from the facepalming or the embarrassment…
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Western Black Rhino Declared Extinct
“One quarter of mammals are at risk of extinction.”
Nothing really gets me like extinction. There is literally nothing sadder than the anthropogenic-induced extinction of a species. An organism that evolved over millennia, lost forever. It’s never coming back.
Because we can’t help but insist that we have the right to all animals’ bodies. Because we are the “masters of the garden.”
THIS IS WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR OUR INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION TO CONTINUE. THE END OF SPECIES, THE ELIMINATION OF BIODIVERSITY, THE EXTERMINATION OF LIFE AS WE SEEK TO CONTINUALLY CONVERT LIVING BODIES (ANIMALS, WATER, MOUNTAINS) INTO RESOURCES FOR OUR SELFISH USES.
This is not acceptable.
feeling very empty, very small, very ashamed.
…and meanwhile the human population on this planet has hit seven billion.
I’m still trying to figure out what makes us so damned special, and I’m coming up blank.
(via mooglets)
Texas drought could become worst ever: state climatologist
“Texas could be in the midst of a drought the history books have never seen, meaning water planners need to prepare for worse than what they’ve seen, state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said Thursday.
The current drought could last until 2020, because the region’s climate is in the middle of a 20- to 40-year dry phase, Nielsen-Gammon said.
Water planners, including state agencies and river authorities, have long since made water plans based on the drought of record, a nearly 10-year dry spell in the 1940s and 1950s.
“Sooner or later there will be a drought that’s worse” (than the drought of record), Nielsen-Gammon said. “The planning needs to be able to cover the bases not just for the worst that we’ve seen but also have a plan going forward in case conditions become worse than that.”
The state’s water development board, which conducts long-term water planning, declined to comment on whether the benchmark should be raised to accommodate worse droughts than the drought of record.”
Source: Statesman
Oh, but keep praying for rain, Rick. It’s working just about as well as your abstinence program, isn’t it?
Fox News host asks Bill Nye if volcanoes on the moon mean global warming is fake. Bill Nye rightly treats Fox News host like a 3rd grader.
Bill Nye, you are my kinda guy.
(Source: goodreasonnews)
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This is what we’re facing as environmental protections are stripped and things like fracking continue.
