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We should quit talking about it and do something
Although Bernie has not dropped out of the DemPrimary he has been blacked out of media and polling. (again!) Note that he has enough pledged delegates to take the Dem nomination if the super delegates voted for him en mass. HRC never passed the actual elected delegate threshold (2383) for the nomination.
absolutely . The party that says it is with climate concerns cannot risk causing doubt of itself. Yet its the democrat party and they are nearly to be suspected of being a shell company of republicans . Certainly their embarassed political spouse in political privatization. The debate about climate should not be embellished at all. At this point facts are effectively fear causing sufficiently if the listener has a central nervous system of a competent person.
On the general political angle is how this gets legislated. The American people need to demand these topics be addressed in two branch discussions. When Congressman and the President are debating at the White House , in all cases but national security those meeting should not be secret at all. Instead we have two parties dwaddling around doing nothing and meeting as party business as though they are the party chairmen , with another party member of dnc the president and leaving the public sphere outside the door of the political system. Thats how the people get ignored. Theres only one reason for secrecy, concealing privilege and lobbyist cutouts. .. oh and favors.
I feel the Science is something the woken ex deniers start paying attention to. For the sleeping dolts content with capitalist-gods oil profiteering the info that could break their stride might be best invested over at ZIka . Thats my suggestion. Zika didn't just appear out of nowhere. There is the remote possibility it could be engineered as a bio weapon but for educational purposes Zika is rampant because what controls it is no longer as effective. Apparently something else lives in mosquitos that keeps transmission lower or maybe mosquitos started feeding on new predators in a biome. A mosquito transmission rate increase translates as a change in host of Zika and likewise a decrease of hosts that carry the offsetting proteins or microorganisms. Immediately culprit is deforestation.
How would I conclude that? Well deforestation kills off some animals that need to exist in jungles and forests. No trees= no squirrels. no monkeys, not much of anything jungle-like. That can't possiby coincide with a christian-creationist dogma that man may take away life habitats of other creatures. Those predators that survive the industrialization from one changed biome move into other biomes. Theres your mechanism. Two types of mosquito blood hosts that cause Zikas transmission by their imbalance of being bitten or lack of one and abundance of the other.
Hi Thom,
You have understated how dire the melting arctic ice situation really is. Consider a glass of water with ice cubes in it. As you heat the water in the glass, the ice will begin to melt mitigating the rise in temperature of the water. When the ice is gone and you continue to heat the water, the rate of increase of the water temperature will increase. When the arctic ice sheet is done, the rate of increase of ocean temperature will increase dramatically. A point of no return ?? A good source on stuff like this is a site called Arctic News.
Brooks Mitchell
Kindly read the blog entitled "Will the Arctic Be Ice-Free Within the Next Two Decades?" dated Jun 29
Some scary info from alanroth and robertcd
We are just like the frog enjoying warmth in water that is gradually being heated to boiling point... thus death!
IF the US so-called "regulatory" agencies (and corporatized media) were, even belatedly, exposed for PRETENDING to fight "Big Tobacco" but actually defending and protecting that industry by scapegoating nature's unpatented tobacco plant AND the unwitting, unprotected, secretly-poisoned, defrauded, often killed, and uncompensated smokers for all the health problems, THEN, maybe there'd be a Critical Mass of understanding, outrage and action to outlaw ANY Public Official from accepting even a dime of PRIVATE money.
The cigarette industry is part and parcel of Big Pesticides (big oil and pharms galore... tobacco being the 6th most pesticide intensive crop), Big Chlorine (dioxins in typical cig smoke from still "legal" pesticides and chlor-bleached paper), Pharms again via all sorts of untested often toxic unlabeled cig additives, etc etc etc AND the Big Health Insurers (!) which invest BILLIONS (w/ a "B") in not only cigarette manufacturing but also pesticides, pharms, chlorine and the rest. (Search up "PNHP Insurance Tobacco " for info)
BECAUSE the corporatocracy already did the work of demonizing smoking products, we don't have to do that work.
Job now is SIMPLY to expose WHY those so-called "tobacco" products are so deadly, that so many "smoking-related" (i.e. victim-caused) diseases cannot be caused by smoke from any plant, and to mention that a given cigarette may not contain a shred of tobacco....but instead, fake tobacco made in US Patented ways, from all sorts of industrial waste...none of it likely organic. A vital, integral point being...to call the industry by its preferred "tobacco" name is to SERVE that industry and to perpetuate its biggest deceit.
If we let them get away with this "tobacco" scam, as they did for decades with the also "evil" cannabis-hemp-pot scam, and as they did by blaming miners' smoking for deadly effects of coal dust...we, by silence, let them get away with evasion of unimaginable criminal and liability violations...and with the Very Similar, Virtually-Identical blaming of Nature for Climate Change/Warming. They did it before, with very bad results for us, and they're doing it again with global warming...to get Big Oil, fossil fuels, et ilk off the hook....and to prevent benign natural competition from interfering with profits.
We, even leftist enviros and health activists and the like, by inexplicable inaction on this, let them continue the same health and environmental abuses.
I have been looking into this for ages and what isn't mentioned are all the other feedback loops and enviromental issues that are going along with Global Warming (actually called anthropogenic forced global heating; which means man made forced heating which isn't natural) and Climate Change which is the result of the forced heating. We have the acidfication of the oceans, the total distrcution of the Great Barrier Reef. We have the 6th great extenction going on which is manily due to human activity. We have major deforestaion either on purpose or through massive forest fires. And the scariest of all issues that no one wants to talk about. Along with the great extinction going on, half of all the phatoplankton have died out do to both forced global heating and acidification. Once those are all gone the whole of the Oceans will be wiped of nearly all sea life destroying the food chain. Since both the major tropical forests are being destroyed along with the phatoplankton, which both pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and replenish it with oxgen we could be running out of that in the near future. But maybe this is just too much bad info overload?
If you think two decades, you are ignoring history. We'll be lucky if it will take as long as a decade. History (from ice cores) tells us that abrupt climate change has occurred in the Arctic 23 times during the past 100,000 years. Each time the temperature rose 14 to 18 degrees F. Some of the times it took 10-20 years but a majority of the times it took only 3 years. You can see this in Dr. Richard Alley's book The Two-Mile Time Machine. He was part of the drilling team that twice drilled down 2 miles into the Greenland glaciers and retrieved the history record.
What you are not getting is that it is not just the loss of albedo that is at work. There are 1 trillion tons of carbon in the top 3 meters of the continuous permafrost (Ted Shuur) and at least half of that is predicted to thaw this century. Most of it is ice laden so as the carbon thaws, methanogens will devour the carbon quickly and convert it to methane which is more that 100 times stronger than CO2 in its greenhouse gas effect. And it will be radiating right back down on the permafrost to further the thawing before it moseys along to other regions.
Add to that the thermal energy that is building in the Arctic Ocean. That thermal energy rises up from the ocean in warm weather and moves over the permafrost up to 900 miles inland. That thermal energy and the thermal energy radiating from the methane in the atmosphere will together cascade, causing a phase change (the IPCC uses that term), AKA abrupt climate change.
That's not even considering the strong potential of the escape of methane from methane clathrates that will be upset by the ocean's thermal buildup.
We are already experiencing abrupt climate change. In some parts of the Arctic, the temperature is already up 8 degrees F. This is already an ENORMOUS change in only a few years. It's likely that the Arctic sea ice will be gone in just a few years.
Tom, I'm very studied on this and have already done speaking engagements before large audiences of risk managers and actuaries. I'd be glad to talk with you about it.
Alan
A carbon tax will reduce emissions by making clean energy more profitable. If this is accompanied by cap and trade, and not gamed as in Europe, carbon emissions could be phased out more quickly. Review the successful cap and trade policies that led to the reduction of ozone depleting chemicals. It works!
But a more efficacious method is to force Congress to shift the subsidies from carbon intensive fuels to sustainable energy sources, like geothermal, wind and solar. Unfortunately, our electorate continues to be bribed specifically to keep these subsidies in place and to prevent subsidies for sustainable energies.
We don’t have to give up our electricity, as OU812 suggests. We have to give up the fascists!
A carbon tax will reduce emissions by making clean energy more profitable. If this is accompanied by cap and trade, and not gamed as in Europe, carbon emissions could be phased out more quickly. Review the successful cap and trade policies that led to the reduction of ozone depleting chemicals. It works!
But a more efficacious method is to force Congress to shift the subsidies from carbon intensive fuels to sustainable energy sources, like geothermal, wind and solar. Unfortunately, our electorate continues to be bribed specifically to keep these subsidies in place and to prevent subsidies for sustainable energies.
We don’t have to give up our electricity, as OU812 suggests. We have to give up the fascists!
Why were so few US figures among the many names within the Panama Papers?
Answer: The corrupt can do their shell corporations here at home with greater safety.
Finally we understand the relationship in between good science is good business. Previously we never known the fact that how science and business are inter-related with each other. But this article here describes a lot about these relationships and we should understand the importance of climatic crisis.
Business Coach
"But right now, the Democrats have taken a good first step by coming together as a party to call for the Justice Department to investigate....."
I agree, "What A Crock!
The Clinton Democratic platform calling for an investigation into possible Oil industry fraud, is another time 'honored' political scheme, for not calling a spade, a spade. It is once again political deceit. The detrimental consequences to biological creatures and the planet itself of 'fracking' is considerable and scientifically valid. (http://www.alternet.org/environment/8-dangerous-side-effects-fracking-in...)
The fact that now the Clinton camp is voicing this insubstantial attempt, again is a political vote getting scheme, which is so apparent, yet the uninformed, (which are so numerous) will more than likely allow themselves to be manipulated by the deceptive political rhetoric as they ususally do. Had Bernie Sanders not run for office, her positions on the major issues of our time would be totally corporate designed. Clinton will see to it that the status quo will remain and the corporate leadership will run this country.
In my mind a Clinton vote is a status quo vote. (status quo which is a continuing slide into Fascism) A vote for Trump is essentially a vote for chaos at the least.
And here we have the so called best that †he corrupt political parties can provide with the lesser of evils being the choice for Americans.
We are where we are today in this country because of both self serving parties. The party first and the well being of Americans and America somewhere down a long list of self serving priorities.
To vote for Clinton , who lies, because she seemingly is not the crazy lying clown Trump is, is the only democratic bit of logic the democratic party can piut forth. Not enough justification for voting people of integrity, who have to sleep each night with the knowledge of who they cast their vote for.
Calling bs on the business as usual Washington investigation crap. We don't need to spend millions to know there was a cover up and enrich more Washington attorneys, nor do we need the traditional "fine then let them continue" policy.
Just stop the bullshit. The Dems are no better than the GOP, they just play their brand of the same game, differently.
The M.O of the democratic party is to act outraged, pretend they are on the side of citizens, while throwing monetary bones to cronies and the courts and citizen rights groups under the guise of pretense:",investigating and getting to the bottom of things."
Not one investigation in the past 40 years has resulted in any substantive reform, but it sure cost the tax payers a lot of money. Everytime and a lot of people in Congress and industry get rich off of it.
I have neither any respect or trust in either party, they all are out for themselves, not the public..one just does it in your face while the other party hugs us and pretends to be our friend while actually doing nothing.
THE LIES. Begin with the media pretending to give us propaganda as news, continues with each party covertly protecting industries while pretending to be citizen advocates..then ends with those in Washington cutting side deals and lining Congress and industry pockets while shills for each side disingenuously point out the duplicity and lies of each other.
All with tax payer money..How cool is that?
Et tu, Thom?
Was the floating/burning house Don Blakenship's by any chance?
A green new deal sounds like a Bernie in the White House sort of thing....long overdue.
No discussion of severe climate change, including the resiliantly resistant ridge, should omit global geoengineering strategies.
What the heck are those criss-cross patterns in the sky? That's "solar radiation managment," man's attempt to reproduce the cooling effect of volcanic ash on the planet by spreading coal fly ash plus alumninum and other heavy metals in the sky.
Although SRM is talked about as a strategy of the future, it's happening now. I believe what I'm seeing.
Get more info here: geo engineering watch dot org
What a crock!! What a waste of money investigating ExxonMobil for Fraud. What hippocrites you lefties are. Everyone of you blame energy companies for your energy addiction. You have a choice, stop using fossil fuels in your auto's. Stop using electricity generated by fossil fuels. No energy company is forcing you to drive, use electricity, eat food delivered by fossil fuel burning trucks, or food grown using fossil fuel burning farm equipment.
A carbon tax please somebody explain to me how taxing carbon is going reduce CO2 output.
"While the platform committee fell short of embracing a carbon tax and an outright ban on fracking, the Clinton and Sanders camps did come together to agree that it's time for the Justice Department to investigate fossil fuel companies for potential fraud."
No carbon tax, no ban on fracking....but we'll agree to spend taxpayer dollars to investigate fossil fuel companies for fraud. Is that the carrot that Clinton is offering in order to continue fracking? How does that help us now Tom? Our planet cares about physics right now....how much we are pumping greenhouse gas onto our planet and the effects vs. what we can and must do immediately to lessen those effects if at all possible now. Nice for investigations and a lot of BS from the corporate Democrats....but Mother Earth and it life forms need concrete action now.
When you chose a nuclear plant location and design a plant, it is Engineering 101 that you design and site for worst case scenario. This was obviously not done on the East Coast of Japan as in the last 100 years they have had larger Tsunami's. No plant on the East Coast of Japan should be started again.
PG&E has announced that it is going to decommission Diablo Canyon in 2024 and 2025. The news media keeps saying that they are shutting down the reactors early. In fact they will be shutting down at the end of the 40 year designed operating license time frame. Many plants have applied for a 20 year extension to this license. They have to do an expensive evaluation and review by the NRC to obtain this extension. In Diablo Canyons case they have decided not to pursue this. Diablo Canyon had about 10 years of construction delays, so the plants are physically older than the 40 years. The design is from the 60's. When the plants were designed computers were very low powered for a seismic design. Today's design with new computers and knowledge of seismic design would be much different. So they probably realized that they would never get an extension anyway, considering the faults in the local area. In the last few years decommisoning nuclear plants has become a hand me down project to the next generation. They will delay it for 40 years and let it sit in mothballs until then. No one can predict the costs or ramifications of this delay. Meanwhile they collect off of the funds that they have charged the public and set aside for the decommisioning. Also there is no place for the 1000's of fuel assemblies to go. Something that the nuclear industry has has 60 years to do something about.
Please.
I am so proud that California IS closing the last Nuclear Reactor Power Station - soon! People are always so scared of being without power... I lived for 18 years when I was growing up without A/C and/or heat because of the Winter storms and year-round thunder storms. We were always planning for the next power outtage. Yes, Summers and a few other times of the year we have heat waves, but that's not nearly as awful as being in -20 degrees (below ZERO!) and having the electricity go out... I'm so thankful I moved to the S/W where we can at least sit outside under shade trees, or drive to somewhere that's cooler. I wish other states would become as Climate Change conscience as we are. To NOT become so just reaps more havoc on our climate and all the other creatures therein. To save ourselves, we must also save everything else.
Hi Kend, I'm doing fine. Hope you're as well as you appear to be (if you were making sense I'd think you must be sick or something).
Democrats balance budgets, like Bill Clinton and LBJ. Republicans run up debt, quite willfully and intentionally, like Grover Nordquist and deficit spenders like Ronald Reagan. Democrats aren't afraid to tax, Republicans cut taxes then willfully go on a spending spree to intentionally create deficits.
This is a strategy to force privatization of government, to larcenously take the people's resources away from them and put them in some rich asshole's pocket.
When greedy CEO's make the decision to relocate to areas where slavery by any definition still exists, they not only create ruinous unemployment in towns all across our country, they also foment a global economic race to the bottom. Globalization is like putting concentration of wealth on steroids. It benefits a relative few immensely while taking full advantage of the desperate many..... exactly how the Fascists like Trump want it.
The Brits have finally had enough of the greedy elite...this intervention is a good decision. The TPP needs to make an exit too.
Kansas is merely the latest proof and an example of how the GOP's central market theory fails at the state level. The proof that trickle down had already failed was in 2007. And also in the Stock Market Crash that led to the Great Depression. In each case wealth concentrated into very few hands with the help of legislators bought off by those wealthy few and laws that were either passed or repealed that made it all legal.
Same as it ever was. This is really no different than any other time in history except that the names have changed: the fabulously wealthy were called Lords, the laws were at the pleasure of kings and parliaments instead of presidents and legislatures and today's mega churches are the equivalent of official state religion with their fingers in the pie and fooling people into thinking God wanted you to make them rich.
Those who know history are doomed to repeat it.