Saving Ourselves From Ourselves

And they say that we cannot save humanity if we really put our minds to it……..

U.S. and Dutch scientists credit the 193-nation agreement to ban ozone-depleting substances for avoiding nearly catastrophic environmental hazards.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Johns Hopkins University and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency scientists said if the ozone-banning treaty known as the Montreal Protocol that went into effect in 1989 hadn’t existed, nearly two-thirds of Earth’s ozone would have disappeared by 2065. That would have caused ultraviolet radiation strong enough in mid-latitude cities such as Washington to produce sunburn in just 5 minutes and with DNA mutating UV radiation increasing more than 650 percent, with likely resulting effects on plants, animals and human cancer rates.

So, can we now get to work on global warming too or are we going to continue arguing that it’s not a science, just like skeptics of Ozone depletion claim that it is not science.

Morons At Work (Stay Away Please)

There is this :

Here is a primer for those of you who still don’t understand how global warming works:

• The dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil.

• We drilled for oil, and used most of it to spray on ducks, and the rest we turned into carbon dioxide.

• Carbon dioxide is a hot gas, and it’s making the Sun hotter, which is making the Earth hotter, which makes polar bears sweat, and that’s a bad thing.

• To make the Earth cooler and make polar bears happy, Canadians will pay money to Stephane Dion, who will give all of it back.

• The exchange of money will cool the Earth (ok, this part is a bit vague).

• Farmers are worried that they won’t get enough back after all of it is given back (clearly they are confused, because everyone is supposed to get all their money back, a process that results in global cooling in a way that is not entirely understood by non-Liberals).

• Liberals who are worried that farmers won’t vote for them are complaining loudly, which is generating even more hot air (which warms the Sun and makes polar bears sweat even more, and that’s a bad thing).

• Stephane Dion is going to change the plan by making the carbon tax even stronger, making farmers happy so that they stop bothering Liberals.

• This results in less hot air and comfortable polar bears.

• The happiness of farmers who might vote Liberal will cool the Earth (ok, this part is a bit vague too).

and then there is this :

The ice shelves in Canada’s High Arctic have lost a colossal area this year, scientists report.

The floating tongues of ice attached to Ellesmere Island, which have lasted for thousands of years, have seen almost a quarter of their cover break away.

One of them, the 50 sq km (20 sq miles) Markham shelf, has completely broken off to become floating sea-ice.

Researchers say warm air temperatures and reduced sea-ice conditions in the region have assisted the break-up.

“These substantial calving events underscore the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic,” said Trent University’s Dr Derek Mueller.

“These changes are irreversible under the present climate.”

And this is the modus operandii of the moronic-right here in Canada. Make fun of an issue that would be crucial to our children and their children. “Hell, if it does not affect me, then it is not my fucking problem”. That’s how these morons think.

I find it distasteful to call these people fellow citizens of the world. I mean does it matter at the end of the day if global warming is a science. Does it?

Frankly, I don’t care. I do not care if global warming is a science or not.

We make it our right to pollute the air, sea and land; We make it our right to gouge at earth and we make it our right to dump on mother nature all the time which doesn’t make any sense because we are only hurting ourselves in the process. So why not do the right thing and actually implement policies that do irreparable harm to earth whether they affect global warming or not? I am willing to pay my share.

But, no. This somehow does not sit well with the wingnuts. Any idea where you as a person need to make a sacrifice for the good of the planet and the generations to come, is thrown out the window before you even consider it.

Case in point, the Green Shift. I think if this was a plan from Harper’s government, the moronic right would have endorsed it whole heartedly.

BTW, “Angry White Thing”, the dinosaurs didn’t die because they got too fat and they definetly are not the only source for oil. If you want to attempt humour while dissing an opnion, first get a funny bone and then try it.

The Green Shift

Well, well. Stephen Dion finally shows some spine and comes out swinging. I had thought that he was going to be a foot note in history books but looks like he is fighting to be on the front pages.

I read the plan (PDF) and on paper it looks like a bold initiative and seems do-able. Here is my take on the plan:

WE NEED LEADERSHIP TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE AND STEPHEN DION PROVIDES IT.

I was once part of a focus group where environment was the focus. I remember one of the questions was, how much would you be willing to spend more per month to help pay for the environment. And it was obvious right away that the younger crowd (less than 40 year) was willing to put in more money than the older crowd (a couple of the oldies actually said “the environment can go to hell”). This was a couple of years ago and environment is not on top in the minds of fickle minded Canadians. However, what we need desperately is leadership in fighting global warming. And for my money, Stephen Dion has come up with a very good plan. Will I have to pay for it? Of course, the gas prices will go up, the food costs will go up, the manufactured items will go up and jobs will be lost. So, I and millions will have to pay for the cost in some form. But if it’s good for the economy in the long run and helps my kid, I will pay for it.

I think that this plan is revolutionary and very helpful to the environment and the economy. That’s right, the plan helps save taxes for individuals and the industrial sector. Do not be sucked into this belief that the plan is going to hammer the economy. The industrial sector (the largest polluters) will be getting major tax breaks from the plan. The small businesses will get larger cuts from the plan so it’s win win for all parties concerned. The plan proposes to set up auditing to make sure that each dollar earned from the polluters will go to the Canadians in form of tax breaks and credits.

Politically, this plan will be a hard sell. I mean, Alberta and Saskatchewan would be violently opposed to the plan. Ontario’s manufaturing sector will be opposed to it as well. But if the message can be streamlined by the Liberal party and can elucidate the key points of the plan, majority of the Canadians will go for it. And the Liberal, once in power, can cajol and negotiate it’s way to implementation of the plan.

I intend on watching the Liberals very closely on this. If they ho hum their way through the PR campaign of the plan, I am going to assume that they have every intention of loosing to the Conservatives and vote another way. If they take the fight to the Conservatives, I will be a big proponent of the Liberals and talk to all my friends and acquaintenances to vote Liberals.

Next few months would be interesting.

Global Warming? What Global Warming?

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Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and many could disappear within decades, the U.N. Environment Program said Sunday.

Scientists measuring the health of almost 30 glaciers around the world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006, the U.N. agency said.

UNEP warned that further ice loss could have dramatic consequences particularly in India, whose rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers.

Just because it is a little colder than usual in Canada and US, it does not mean that global warming is not a fact. Oh, that’s right. If it’s not happening here, then it’s not happening anywhere. Isn’t that the motto of the western world?

Another Piece Of Evidence

Global warming? That’s liberal bullshit…….

SEWARD, Alaska — At first sight, it seems to stretch forever: a vast river of white ice, rising up into the sky, its edges framed by a translucent blue piping.

Looking around, there are no obvious indications of a glacier in retreat.

The evidence, however, lines the path to the glacier’s edge.

“There is no question this glacier is in retreat,” says Shelley Hall, chief of resource management for Kenai Fjords National Park.

Alaska’s great glaciers are melting away. Some of the smaller ones have completely disappeared in the past few decades, and while many of the bigger ones will be around for a while yet, their yearly retreat is stunning nonetheless.

Not all the warming can be attributed to the rise in greenhouse-gas emissions. There has also been an El Nino-like shift in wind patterns, a phenomenon known as Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The patterns in the waters surrounding Alaska go through a transition every 20 to 30 years, and their effect on the region lasts much longer than El Nino’s does elsewhere. The last major wind-pattern shift here was back in the late 1970s, which pumped up temperatures by a degree or two.

Add to that temperature increases due to manmade global warming, and in a place such as Alaska you suddenly have a unique set of challenges.

According to a recent University of Alaska study, climate change could add as much as $6-billion to what is now expected to be the $40-billion cost of building and maintaining public infrastructure in Alaska between now and 2030.

Alaska’s roads, buildings, railroads and airports are all going to cost more to replace in part because the foundation upon which they are built is turning into sludge. That once permanently frozen subsoil – permafrost – is thawing.

I should send this article to a colleague of mine who thinks that global warming in not man made. Yes, such human ostriches do live among us the living.

The First Vicitim?

For the global warming naysayers, can you please explain this?

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India’s part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta’s Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.

I just find it funny how some people keep saying that there is no “conclusive evidence” of global warming when the truth is right in front of their eyes.