Letters to the Editor
-
Good
So if you're at least slightly concerned about it, which most people are, don't vote Republican...
...as if we needed another reason.
-
Never enough
No matter how strong the evidence for global warming is it will NEVER be enough for some people, simply because they don't want it to be, since acknowledging the reality would mean we would have to do things which might actually take a few bucks out of their pocket. We can only hope that those who think like that will be removed from power in time for something to be done about the situation.
-
Spread the word
Another talking point for November. Already, we have the GOP as lying us into a disastrous war, cheerleading as we torture people, stepping on their cranks during Katrina and refusing to raise the minimum wage. Now we can tar them as the friendly folks who like watching old people die in heat waves.
Suddenly, the Dems don't look so bad.
-
The limitations of "Science"
Science is always at a disadvantage in the face of Deniers, simply because inherent in science is the acknowledgment of the possibility of error, and the thus inherent tentativeness of empirical findings. The proportion of things that are dispositively deductively "proven" for all time by science is vanishingly small. So, these clowns can commit the "perfectionism" and "straw man" fallacies ad nauseum.
To be rational, you have to do comparative quantitative risk-cost benefit analysis using the best available data (knowing you will get some stuff wrong), about which something dopes like Blunt have zero clue.
Read Tim Flannery's depressing, utterly cogent climate change book " The Weather Makers." (triangulate it with other stuff like Jarod Diamond's " Collapse.") The science is in, as good as it gets. We are cooking our planet, and if we continue, we face unprecedented world-wide misery.
-
Blunt, Indeed
Blunt, as in dull; thick-witted; dim; stupid. Yeah, Hemingway wrote : "The Dirts of Kilaminjaro". Poetic. Register. vote democrat. No prisoners, except those Bushistas in orange jump suits. I pine for that day.
-
just the beginning
Well, you guys may be worried about the politics in November. I'm worried about the temperature in 2010.
Who are these fuckers who keep denying that it's real? How many record-breaking heat waves and unusually powerful hurricanes will it take? People are already dying.
What happens when the WHOLE SUMMER is 110F degrees (=43C)?!?! Except for the heat waves at 120 or 130, and the 'cold spells' at 100 or 90?!? You know we're headed there. It's just a matter of time. And it's pretty alarming to me, how quickly it's coming.
"More air conditioning" you may be thinking. That's going to burn yet more carbon and make it worse, faster. And how about everybody in the world who can't afford A/C? Starting with the 12% of humanity that can't even afford food. They're not going to sit around, watching us chill behind the glass, plumes of smoke coming from the local power plant. First of all, there'll be too many mosquitoes for anybody to spend much time out there.
It's not like everybody goes out and buys Prius hybrid cars and the next year it's nice and cool again. No. If all human carbon burning halted now, somehow, everywhere in the world, next year would still be warmer than this year, cuz the CO2 increases the RATE of warming, not just the temperature now. How's that extra 90ppm of CO2 we've dumped into the air going to go away by itself?
There's no ideas, there's no big plans, just these wimpy marginals reductions in the rate of increase of the temperature. Hmmm... kindof like the national debt. Carbon trading, so we can slow down, a little bit, the carbon dumping. It's necessary but not sufficient.
How many ideas have you heard that would actually REMOVE CO2? Very few.
No, it's not hot. Not now. Now is just the beginning. Enjoy your crisp lettuce and cool summer breezes while they still exist.
-
Why Global Warming Might Not Matter
We have to remember that the Republican party has been aligning itself with far-right fundamentalist Christians who flock to movies that feature Kirk Cameron poofing into thin air during the so-called rapture. I suspect--and I am certain that I have read this opinion elsewhere (probably here on Salon)--that one reason Republican leaders resist serious discussions about global warming is because they believe that they will not be around to experience the worst of it, while we heathens burn here on earth.
Of course, then there are the money-grubbers who are so addicted to financial power that they are willing to risk anything and everything for one more dollar (or a few million). A similar mentality led to the downfall of Enron and Worldcom. I just wish that their maniacal greed for money would have no impact on me or my quality of life.
-
An easy solution
Take a vote to see who thinks global warming is a real phenomenon. Those who don't (starting with Blunt) will have their air conditioning cut off.
And then shut off all the A/C in the White House.
-
Global Warming
The Bush crowd is denying overwhelming evidence supported by hundreds of scientists.
It is not surprising. The forces behind the WH have a well-defined agenda: keep feeding the oil and gas industry. The cretin in the WH believes anything that is fed to him. The moron is so anti education, and so pathologically against science that we cannot expect anything but profound imbecility from his followers.
Burns is an ignorant, stupid, crooked, lying, piece of garbage. In other words, he is a Republican.
-
Back in the District...
In SPringfield, MO today it's 92 degrees, and will hit 98 degrees over the weekend, according to weather.com.
Inside Roy Blunt's mind it's a balmy 72 degrees, and it will stay that way.
-
Blunt reveals a more fundamental problem
I agree with posters who say that some people will never respect science and that Blunt’s global-warming denial is yet another motivator for voting this fall.
But what is often left unsaid - perhaps because it's just too depressing - is that our government doesn't represent us at all. This is astounding. The vast majority of the public (let alone the scientific community) is not only persuaded by the evidence, it wants action.
Blunt is a stark reminder that at least half our Congress - probably most of it - feels no compunction whatsoever to work for the people; we're just rubes who must be paid lip service or bought off with our bigotries around election time. Meanwhile, Rome slowly bakes.