Time's up for climate change deniers

New Jersey Star-Ledger ^ | August 5, 2012 | by Star-Ledger Editorial Board

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Forget the Olympics. Want to watch records being broken? Turn on the weather report.

Everywhere you look, Mother Nature is grumpy. Even skeptics are starting to come around. While no hurricane or heat wave is direct proof of warming, the worldwide pattern of record-breaking weather extremes most certainly is.

Accepting climate change as fact isn’t an inconsequential choice. Extremes in heat and cold are buckling highways, railroads and runways. Floods routinely overwhelm drains and streams. Sea levels could rise a foot by 2050, threatening coastlines worldwide. Adapting our infrastructure to new weather realities requires a committed population.

Retrofits will take generations. The cost is incalculable. Imagine the cost of ignoring it.

Climate ignorance is a self-inflicted wound. Citizens can no longer sit on the sidelines and pretend it’s a political position.

If the people who control the decisions and the purse strings continue to deny climate change, whether for politics or ignorance, a lot of folks will be left under water.

[Texas Fossil]

Russo-Danish astrophysicists' predictions of low sunspot activity

In the "long term" we are all dead". Shorter term, we have bottomed and are coming out of the sunspot minimum (very long and quiet one). My take is that it is not about warming or cooling as much as it is about weather variations. Weather is in fact more unpredictable during the transition through minimums and maximums. Weather is very local. Global trends do not mean as much. I know about crop failures. My family has owned/farmed land in this county since 1889. I was the first family member to move away, gone 25 years, back 17 years. Before that our ancestors farmed in TX, AL and GA. Some of my ancestors weathered the terrible TX drought in 1895. It was something like what we had between Oct. 1, 2010 to Oct. 1, 2011. We had 2-3/4" of rain for 12 months and incredibly hot temperatures. That pattern broke in mid October 2011 and we had a pretty normal winter and early spring. From there we are back in a drought pattern. We shall see what the fall and winter bring.

[gusopol3]

Too bad the Star-Ledger doesn’t see fit to print the news that is inconvenient to their point of view, or they could have looked up the following facts in their own archives:

“A shift away from coal and reduced gasoline demand coupled with a mild winter led to an 8 percent drop in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions during the first quarter of 2012, reports the Energy Information Administration. Emissions between January and March 2012 were the lowest since 1992.

Read more: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0801-us-co2-2012.html#ixzz22iqLTlvc";

Other sources note that US CO2 emissions have fallen further and faster than those of any other country, primarily because of fracking; some say we are on course to meet the Kyoto standards. So the only conclusion to be reached, using the Star-Ledger’s short-sighted and blindered approach , is that the more our CO2 emissions drop, the hotter it gets.

[rktman]

Hey Ripley. I’m proud to be a fly-over moron for sure!!! LOL! Much better that a belt-way moron. And, the glasses on the nose reminded me of a character in some disney animated show. I believe it was a rat that had the glasses on the nose like that. It figures. LOL! And also, since we’ve added 7 states, shouldn’t the tax revenue from those 7 help bring down the debt? Or have they not paid any for 10 years like mittens.

Helping keep mankind warm for 65 years.

[ripley]

“Orhave they not paid for ten years like Mittens.”

Uh oh. You a lurker?

Just asking.

[rktman]

Not! Forgot the “sarcasm ON button”.
Has hairy reed paid his taxes? He won’t release his tax records. Of course there is no “requirement” to release them in the first place. And, wouldn’t it be easy for some intrepid reporter to just call the IRS and ask if Mitt filed his taxes? Yes or no answer from them would settle the question rather than relying on hairy’s “reliable” source. No details required, just yes or no. Did we just get sidetracked? Never mind. LOL!