I just heard about the ancient ice shelf breaking free...

[Danger Mouse]

And it makes the news about Saddam Hussein seem pitifully insignificant in comparison:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/12/29/canada.arctic.ap/index.html
Am I the only person that is terribly frightened by this? It's very serious!
The weather around here has been FREAKY this winter so far...it really worries me...I feel that we NEED to get moving on the environment...as soon as the Dems take power. We can bitch all we want about all of these other topics...but we won't be anywhere if we don't have a planet to live on.
Guys, this should be our #1 priority, or close to it!
We can make a difference, but we NEED to take the Dems to task on this...we can't just sit back and let things get worse and worse...otherwise it'll be too late!
Put aside our petty differences about inconsequential matters...we need to be fighting, right now, for the changes necessary to keep this planet alive!

[WindRavenX]

1. global warming is a lie!

Now, why don't you turn on CNN--real news is happening :sarcasm:

[Danger Mouse]

15. Everytime I think about 'An Inconvenient Truth'...

...my hair stands on end...he was so spot on...about everything...and how it just seems...so unimportant to everyone...the media, the government...even lots of people on DU...we need to MAKE them care.

[BluePatriot]

54. sadly that's what my father in law thinks

I don't get him sometimes....if he'd quit watching FOX he'd probably be OK....

[Danger Mouse]

57. People are vulnerable to the Big Lie...

that Global Warming is a hoax...because of the media...if you can remove the media influence from them, then you can chip away at the skepticism...good luck with that, though.
I found that turning off the TV has been so liberating to my sanity...I need to stop reading CNN.com all the time though, it's just as bad :/

[illinoisprogressive]

2. I read it yesterday

and saw a report about the polar bears. I am so upset and scared. We have a dumb ass in the white house who doesn't believe in global warming and keeps reving the crap up. more more. So his buddies can pocket more and more.
In the meantime our planet is dying and he has chopped off alot more than would have normally been.

[bdamomma]

69. that asshole in the WH did not want to anything to do

with the Kyoto Protocol, what a stupid stupid man, * abuses everything.

[Danger Mouse]

74. He's managed to piss on pretty much everything he's come across.

He's a real renaissance man of shit.

[sillyphoenix]

3. Yet more proof that global warming is 1) real 2) getting worse!

I mean, shit, I live in upstate NY and we haven't had a snowflake yet. IT'S DECEMBER 30th. SOMETHING IS WRONG HERE.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Welcome to Du

and we only had our first day of winter yesterday

now back to Santa Ana conditions, thank you

[Danger Mouse]

8. I live in upstate NY too...

...and the weather has been freakishly warm here as well.
Whenever people say nice things about the 'mild' weather, I just want to flip out...do they realize the price we're paying for this nice, mild weather??

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. One word

NO

Most americans really don't get it, and they will get it when the Conveyor belt stops working... faster than you can say stop I fear

[Danger Mouse]

20. Yeah...I realize that people don't get it...

They don't understand. Like, I was telling a coworker about how that science teachers' association had refused free copies of 'An Inconvenient Truth,' and she said, 'Oh, cause it doesn't tell the other side of the story?' And I said "THERE IS NO OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY!" not so loud :P hehe, but she honestly didn't realize how factual the movie was...people have doubts about global warming caused by a skeptical corporate media...bad corporations...don't want to have to change their devious ways...

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. In the meantime my dad wanted to buy us a car

we said thanks and insisted on a hybrid... the little we could do

But we get it, and obviously you get it

[barb162]

4. Lots of people are terribly frightened

And just wait till the oceans start rising with so many millions of people living on the coasts and at sea level.

[Stephanie]

6. I'm so terrified I can't even read these articles.

I don't need convincing. I know it's dire. I'm frightened beyond belief.

[Danger Mouse]

13. ...and still Bush and the Repubs...

whistle and twiddle their thums while Rome burns...the people in power have done the people, and the world, a great disservice by refusing to act on this issue.
Our children will be the ones who suffer for it...but we will see in our lifetimes, the evil we have wrought.

[Lisa]

7. as a Canadian, I predict that Bush will ask our Prime Minister ...

"Hey Stevie, if you guys ain't usin' the part a' yer country that jus' snapped off -- kin I have it?"


Thanks for flagging this story, Elrond. It did make the top of the news in Canada yesterday, but I guess all the other things going on have pushed it off the front pages!

[orleans]

32. i think mike malloy read this or a similar article on his show either

last night or the night before (wed or thurs)

too bad canada can't sue the gop

too bad we all can't sue these fucking republicans.

[Lisa]

35. too bad we can't make Bush and Harper walk across that thinning icepack!

Dodging starving polar bears, etc.

[bdamomma]

71. I wish WE THE PEOPLE could we press charges against the

government, US against THEM, could this be possible?

[beam me up scottie]

9. You're right, of course, Elrond.

This development is very sobering. We need to make sure everyone knows about this.

If what happened in the Canadian Arctic last year doesn't wake people up, I don't know what will.

But don't forget, a lot of us are extremely upset at the travesty of justice that occurred and also at the actions of our fellow "citizens" tonight.

They actually rang the church bells in my town.

Anyway, K&R for point taken.

[Danger Mouse]

11. I understand that...

...and it disgusts me, too, how people are practically ejaculating with joy about it...but still...priorities people! :)

[Mind_your_head]

24. Whaaaa???? Why did they ring the churchbells tonight? (for something

special, I presume?) What did I miss?

[beam me up scottie]

31. They rang them after it was announced Saddam was hanged.

I dread work on Tuesday. I'll probably get fired for whacking someone with their bible.

[Danger Mouse]

40. Good luck with that, BMUS...

I don't know how you stand it.

[beam me up scottie]

42. I dream of returning to my beloved Vermont.

Every night.:)

[CrispyQ]

59. "They actually rang the church bells in my town."

Shameful.

[beam me up scottie]

60. It boggles the mind.

No matter how long I live here, I'll never get it.

[Danger Mouse]

65. Joy in the pain and suffering and death of others?

Ugh...

[charlie]

10. Check out what's happening in our oceans

right now, it'll make your hair stand straight up. I dunno, I fear we're already past the point where we can expect to do much more than marginally ameliorate the coming storm.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean30jul30,0,952130.story

[Danger Mouse]

12. If I read that, I won't be able to sleep =P

...what the hell is wrong with us? Why haven't we done something? I want to believe that it's not too late, that there's still hope...

[beam me up scottie]

14. We've known about this for decades, Elrond.

But we haven't been able to hold power long enough in order to do much.

And what we DID do, the fucking-scuse my language-greedy bastards who installed our government officials UNdid.

[Danger Mouse]

17. Ah, the glories of de-regulation...

...who cares if we screw over our children and our grandchildren? we're making money hand over fist! enjoy your floods and droughts, kids!

[sillyphoenix]

18. Three words: HOLY LIVING FUCK.

[charlie]

21. It's like a science fiction scenario, innit?

Caustic goop burning holes in fisherman? The seas reverting to a primordial soup? It's astounding this shit can't break the media's fixation on celebutard news. It's certainly freaky and lurid enough for them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. I write Sci fi

and this and the AF developing antimater weapons I am going, FUCK I am writing history now, not sci fi

GGRRRRRR

[charlie]

26. Weird, huh?

I can see how current events can put a sci-fi writer behind the novelty curve, the same way Bushco is making satire near impossible. We're living the "interesting times" curse. Lucky us.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Well not if you base your fiction mostly on

poltiics and social commentary.. which I do

but if I did try to "sell" my work to a main stream publisher, forget it.

I have had osme stories that have broken time, distance records in rejections.... but when you critize the christian right for some reason they get a tad touchy.

[charlie]

36. You give the fundie right

the red-ass treatment in your stories? You're the anti-O. S. Card, then? Cooool. Keep it up :thumbsup:

[Lisa]

34. the SF writers were ahead of the scientists ...

I remember I was trying to do my graduate research on the impacts of global warming on forest fires (and on the small communities in the boreal zone) -- nobody in Canada had gotten as far as the social impact stuff, but the same year I did my thesis in the early 90s, there were SF stories coming out trying to look at that. (Meanwhile the natural scientists were still trying to figure out how the predicted temp and rainfall shifts would affect fire seasons, then put that into a forestry model to look at ecosystems, and the social scientists hadn't even done the economics and sociology component yet!)

The SF writers knew that the really big questions (and the ones which policymakers and everyday people would want to know about) were about human responses -- climate models and even ecosystem shifts were too abstract.

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. Well the last years since oh

2002, when the nightmare started, I started to plan a world and now have published it

I wrrote a historical time line for it... and it is scary when many of the politics are comming to pass

And yes the war on sacred terror and our war on the environment do play a critical role

But it is down right scary when at times I open a news story (the rise of the Nationalist party in Japan for example) and I go, not again... writing sic fi not prophecy.

I swear.

On the bright side, in this setting we manage to leave Mother Earth... on the down side, the two major societies that emerge are quite dystopic... perhaps the kids who hopefully read the fiction will see the connection to the real world.

Yes, I can hope.

[nebenaube]

45. they got antimatter weapons now? n/t

[beam me up scottie]

25. Jesus Christ.

The fireweed began each spring as tufts of hairy growth and spread across the seafloor fast enough to cover a football field in an hour.

When fishermen touched it, their skin broke out in searing welts. Their lips blistered and peeled. Their eyes burned and swelled shut. Water that splashed from their nets spread the inflammation to their legs and torsos.

"It comes up like little boils," said Randolph Van Dyk, a fisherman whose powerful legs are pocked with scars. "At nighttime, you can feel them burning. I tried everything to get rid of them. Nothing worked."

As the weed blanketed miles of the bay over the last decade, it stained fishing nets a dark purple and left them coated with a powdery residue. When fishermen tried to shake it off the webbing, their throats constricted and they gasped for air.

After one man bit a fishing line in two, his mouth and tongue swelled so badly that he couldn't eat solid food for a week. Others made an even more painful mistake, neglecting to wash the residue from their hands before relieving themselves over the sides of their boats.

[charlie]

33. And what does this sound like

but... WMD? Y'know, the chemical horror that we went 8000 miles and spent half a trillion dollars to make sure Saddam couldn't spring out from under our beds and douse us with. Talk about being unable to prioritize. We are dumb as fuck.

[beam me up scottie]

37. We were taught how to recognize chemical weapons & inject ourselves with the proper antidote

But there was no training on Parris Island that could prepare us for this.

[Danger Mouse]

39. Okay...I decided to read it and...

OMFG...I can't believe it...it's like something out of a nightmare....

[CrispyQ]

64. Holy crap.

I just read the entire article. This should be THE NUMBER ONE NEWS STORY EVERYWHERE, but nary a whisper.

Absolutely terrifying.

[Richard D]

19. Our Great Grand children . . .

. . . will have trouble remembering the names bush, and Saddam. They'll not even study Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, etc. But they will likely curse us for our causing global warming and look back on us as pitiful evil fools. If they are alive.

[bdamomma]

72. all the more reason why people have to do something,

these strange weather changes are being felt everywhere, not only in the US but in Europe. No snow being reported on certain mountains, an ice shelf that broke off after thousand of years, bears not hiberating, flowers blooming earlier, this is serious shit, I am also very wary what shit we are pumping into our environment, it all comes from mankind. Disgusting how some people (not all of us) just do not care at all.

[Danger Mouse]

73. ...and I can't stop thinking about...

...can't stop thinking that I am a part of this, that this is what we have wrought upon the earth...it's up to us to do what we can...fight ignorance, fight unwillingness to change...and be willing to change ourselves.

[Lisa]

27. just to help everyone get to sleep tonight

Just what you need -- a whole raft of documents about how to mitigate global warming! (I could talk about this stuff for hours, and my boss is so into it that he insisted on coming into work today and going over the "stabilization wedges" concept for a course we're teaching next month ... but I know it can get kind of boring with all the calculations, policy initiatives, and such. It's better than taking sleeping pills! Much better, actually, because their enthusiasm is kind of infectious.)

The Pew Center is a group of researchers who are trying to find ways to reverse the damage, and to cut a long story short, it looks like there's a lot of stuff we can do to keep the predicted change near or even below 2 degrees Celsius. There would still be problems, but it would sure as hell beat a 3+ degrees shift, and it's way better than moaning that "oh it's too late so we might as well just have fun while we can and burn all the oil we can get our hands on" -- which I predict is Bush's fall-back position.

http://www.pewclimate.org/

For example ...

Climate Change 101: A series of brief reports introducing climate change science and solutions.

103 Climate Change-Related Proposals Introduced in 109th Congress:
Read summaries of all 103 proposals (December 19, 2006). BRAND NEW! Check to see if your rep is sponsoring something, and if not, get on the phone or computer and tell him/her to put something together and get in line, because this is going to be huge.

Corporate Strategies That Address Climate Change: A detailed "how to" guide on how companies can fully integrate climate factors into their business strategies (October 18, 2006). If you work in the private sector, consider that this isn't far-out hippy stuff ... unless one considers Swiss Re, DuPont, Alcoa, Shell, and Whirlpool to be flaky.

State Action on Climate Change: if you're in the public sector, look at all the stuff that can be done on a sub-national level. (The Mayor of Seattle and a bunch of other city leaders, across the country and around the world, are also active ... http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/climate/ )

[beam me up scottie]

38. Thanks, Lisa!!!

You rock! :headbang:

[orleans]

28. amazing isn't it? that the gop uses the words "global warming"

check this out:
"WASHINGTON (AP) — Polar bears are in jeopardy and need stronger government protection because of melting Arctic sea ice related to global warming, the Bush administration said Wednesday."

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/washington/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/1167273242150270.xml&storylist=washington

[enigmatic]

30. This is big news up here

And very, very scary. We've known about what happening in Global Warming up close, and it's undeniable.

[NMMNG]

43. Global Warming is just a theory!

And anyway, who cares about the planet cuz the Rapture is coming any minute!


Sarcasm aside, I agree. We need to get out of this head in the sand, wanton/wasteful/ignorant mode and take action before it's too late.

[shance]

44. Check out the Weather Modification laws and how governments manipulate

weather patterns and have since the early fifties and sixties.

There is much that the majority of the public is left in the dark about.

There is much we need to learn.

[beam me up scottie]

46. Oh brother, here we go again. Governments don't control the weather.

Elrond started this thread to discuss existing threats to our environment, not imaginary ones.

We don't need the propaganda of the paranoid, it's not at all helpful.

And since I know where you're going with this, let me do a little preemptive surgical skepti-strike:

HIGH FREQUENCY ACTIVE AURORAL RESEARCH PROGRAM

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is an investigation project to "understand, simulate and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems". Started in 1993, the project is proposed to last for a period of twenty years.

The project is jointly funded by the United States Air Force, the Navy, and the University of Alaska. It is said that the project is similar to numerous existing ionospheric heaters around the world, and has a large suite of diagnostic instruments that facilitate its use to increase scientific understanding of ionospheric dynamics. It is a popular target of conspiracy theories, and though many have expressed fears of the HAARP being used as a nefarious weapon, the scientists involved in aeronomy, space science, or plasma physics reject these fears as unfounded.

*********

Research at the HAARP includes:

1. Ionospheric heating

2. Plasma line observations

3. Stimulated electron emission observations

4. Gyro-frequency heating research

5. Spread F observations

6. Airglow observations

7. Heating induced scintillation observations

8. VLF and ELF generation observations

9. Radio observations of meteors

10. Polar mesospheric summer echos : Polar Mesospheric Summer Echos (PMSE) have been studied using the IRI as a powerful radar, as well as with the 28 MHz radar, and the two VHF radars at 49 MHz and 139 MHz. The presence of multiple radars spanning both HF and VHF bands allows scientists to make comparative measurements that may someday lead to an understanding of the processes that form these elusive phenomenon.

*********

General Information about the HAARP Program

Program Purpose:

HAARP is a scientific endeavor aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the ionosphere, with particular emphasis on being able to understand and use it to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defense purposes.

The HAARP program is committed to developing a world class ionospheric research facility consisting of:

* The ionospheric research instrument (IRI), a high power transmitter facility operating in the HF frequency range. The IRI will be used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere for scientific study.

* A sophisticated suite of Scientific (or "diagnostic") instruments that will be used to observe the physical processes that occur in the excited region.

Observation of the processes resulting from the use of the IRI in a controlled manner will allow scientists to better understand processes that occur continuously under the natural stimulation of the sun.

Scientific instruments installed at the HAARP Observatory will be useful for a variety of continuing research efforts which do not involve the use of the IRI but are strictly passive. Among these studies include ionospheric characterization using satellite beacons, telescopic observation of the fine structure in the aurora, and documentation of long-term variations in the ozone layer.

http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/gen.html

In September 1995, a book entitled Angels Don't Play This HAARP: Advances in Tesla Technology by Nick Begich, Jr., son of the late Congressman Nick Begich, claimed that the project in its present stage could be used for "geophysical warfare". The HAARP has subsequently become a target for those who have suggested that it could be used to test the ability "to deliver very large amount of energy, comparable to a nuclear bomb, anywhere on earth", "changing weather patterns", "blocking all global communications", "disrupting human mental processes" and mind control, and "x-raying the earth." These claims are generally disregarded by scientists and those involved with the project as being completely baseless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program

HAARP is a radio science research facility. They do not control the weather. They do not employ mad scientists with plans to take over the world.

And if you're still worried about this top secret project that the government doesn't want you to know about, they have an open house every year, the general public is invited and everyone is welcome to bring their cameras.




Oh yeah, I almost forgot, they also have a HAARP cam: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/cam.fcgi


Keep an eye on them for us.

[shance]

47. Oh Scottie, you're always so....quaint.

Please by all means, knock yourself out denying the facts, like the Weather Modification laws. They are on the books, all the way back to the 1960's....

And by all means they should learn about HAARP.

I guess your goal is total ignorance for all "the masses"?

People shouldn't believe either you and/or me, they should simply become informed about Weather Modification. They deserve access to the information, which is apparently what you want to avoid them from seeing.

Stop trying to allow individuals to learn for themselves.

[beam me up scottie]

48. See, that's where you and I are different. I provided links so that people CAN learn.

You, on the other hand, apparently have nothing but cryptic one liners and vague references of sinister government plots.









edited for crappy grammar-stupid migraine meds

[Danger Mouse]

50. ...wow :)

You get em, HMUS!

[beam me up scottie]

53. I have a thing for science.

It's not a comic book and it's not astrology.

People who have no respect for science are the ones who are ignoring global warming, making park rangers hock creationist literature that teaches that the Grand Canyon is only 6000 years old, and turning our high school science labs into bible study.


Sorry, Elrond, rant over.

[Danger Mouse]

56. Rant ON...

and keep it going.
Honestly, I'm sick of it as well. There are many kinds of people who piss all over science:
1.) people who care only about corporate profits, no matter how much they screw over the planet
2.) people who care only about what the bible says, no matter how many scientific FACTS are staring them right in the face
3.) people who are so paranoid that they'll buy any whackjob conspiracy theory, no matter how ridiculous
4.) people who care only about a political gain, no matter how much they enable #1 or #2.

I NEVER put my religion before science. It just doesn't make sense to do so. We've got so much work to do if we want to have any hope of surviving, and whining about 'but the Bible says THIS...' isn't helping anybody.

[beam me up scottie]

63. Only if you join me.

It is all about priorities.

Polar bears are drowning in part because of "end of time" beliefs.

There are people who WANT to bring on the end of times.

Christians like you are the best chance we've got.

No one listens to angry militant atheists since we've been marginalized.

But you guys can get through to the moderates and the conservatives.

They are already suspicious of the dominionist motives, this might just hammer it home.

[Danger Mouse]

66. Of course I will join you.

Anything I can do, I will.

[Danger Mouse]

67. Exactly...trying to hasten the coming of the end times...

Not even realizing that if they followed their own religion at all, God wanted us to be STEWARDS OF THE EARTH...you know...take care of it and all of that?
But hastening the coming of the apocalypse...it's so depraved, so insane, so evil...

[YankeyMCC]

49. Absolutely correct

the climate crisis is the Most important issue facing the world today.

[CrispyQ]

51. I know three right wingers, who believe that global warming is a hoax,

feel they have been vindicated with our recent snow dump in Colorado. On Christmas Eve I listened to them go on about how global warming is the scam of the century. :eyes:

They just don't see the big picture, do they? They focus on the small parts that support their views & ignore the rest.

[Danger Mouse]

58. And they'll keep braying that global warming is a hoax...

right up till manhatten is submerged by rising sea levels.
The 'big picture' is a foreign concept to your average right wing looney toon.

[Pathwalker]

61. It's always about the LOCAL weather, isn't it?

It's the same here is Michigan. When it's freakishly warm, they're all so happy about Global Warming; then when it snows, they say - what happened to all that Global Warming?
Then, I started asking them why they thought Michigan was the only place on the globe, and they stopped mentioning it. They didn't like it when I mentioned all the other places being so messed up, and how we're the biggest polluters on the planet.
But, they only focus on the local weather.

[JanMichael]

52. Smoke 'em if ya got 'em

We are well and truly screwed.

Even with rapid changes on our part the damage has been, and continues to be, done. We can't emit negative carbon can we? And don't forget and China and Russia...

All that's left now is to see the results of Mankind's best thinking which are beyond ugly.

Finis.

[Danger Mouse]

55. Anyone up for an

'End of the World' Party? We can celebrate the horrors we have caused to the planet! Sounds like fun!

[graywarrior]

62. A friend of mine sent me this. Watch the video.

I think I may have to take steps in this direction because I don't know what else I can do except start in my own back yard.

http://renu.citizenre.com/index.php?c=1167514251

[bdamomma]

68. I think we all better do something about how our environment

is going through dramatic changes for our children's sake.

[Danger Mouse]

76. I keep looking at my nine year old sister...

thinking 'what kind of world will she be growing up in?'
If we don't do something soon...in our lifetimes we will see cataclysms most wondrous strange.

[Goblinmonger]

70. Satan just made that happen

so that we would question god's creation of the earth. Don't fall for it.

[Danger Mouse]

79. Phew. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

I was really worried for a sec.

[Lipton64]

75. Well, tell the American "big 3" in Detroit to stop cranking out those pick-ups and SUVs like they...

STILL are doing after not getting the writing on the wall with this past summer's insane gas spike. Keep putting out gas-guzzlers and pretty soon more ice sheets will keep breaking off to make our oceans that much higher....

[Danger Mouse]

78. They also fail to see their own profits in freefall...

...keep cutting jobs rather than actually looking at what's killing them...it's those durned foreign cars...more efficient!!!
But American pigs want their big SUVs to accompany their big, all-consuming appetite.

[emmadoggy]

77. Nope. You're not the only one. I am truly terrified about all of this.

Disgusted, sad, depressed, angry and utterly afraid for our planet.

:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: