Earth Melts While Republicans Maintain Denial

Environmentalists, people left of center, dirty hippies and even moderates have been saying FOR YEARS now that human activity is increasing the rate of global warming.

Republicans have been steadfast in the commitment to deny human affected global warming. Calling it witchcraft ever since 2004 and beyond.

Bush Attacks Environmental Scare Stories (2004)
Republican Congressman Advised to Deny Global Warming (2004)
Conservative website arguing against global warming
GOP against Global Warming (2007)
"In 2006, the National Journal asked a group of Republican senators and House members: "Do you think it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made problems?" Of the respondents, 23 percent said yes, 77 percent said no. "

Until just VERY recently the hard right has denied global warming. Only until the majority of the planet and 99.87% of every single climatologist and weather scientist on the planet has screamed global warming has the Dubya administration and their sycophants finally started … talking about global warming.

This op-ed in the NY Times is, again, stating the obvious.

A Swiftly Melting Planet
By THOMAS HOMER-DIXON
Toronto
THE Arctic ice cap melted this summer at a shocking pace, disappearing at a far higher rate than predicted by even the most pessimistic experts in global warming. But we shouldn't be shocked, because scientists have long known that major features of earth's interlinked climate system of air and water can change abruptly.

A big reason such change happens is feedback - not the feedback that you'd like to give your boss, but the feedback that creates a vicious circle. This type of feedback in our global climate could determine humankind's future prosperity and even survival.

The vast expanse of ice floating on the surface of the Arctic Ocean always recedes in the summer, reaching its lowest point sometime in September. Every winter it expands again, as the long Arctic night descends and temperatures plummet.

Each summer over the past six years, global warming has trimmed this ice's total area a little more, and each winter the ice's recovery has been a little less robust. These trends alarmed climate scientists, but most thought that sea ice wouldn't disappear completely in the Arctic summer before 2040 at the earliest.

But this past summer sent scientists scrambling to redo their estimates. Week by week, the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., reported the trend: from 2.23 million square miles of ice remaining on Aug. 8 to 1.6 million square miles on Sept. 16, an astonishing drop from the previous low of 2.05 million square miles, reached in 2005.

The loss of Arctic sea ice won't be the last abrupt change in earth's climate, because of feedbacks. One of the climate's most important destabilizing feedbacks involves Arctic ice. It works like this: our release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases around the planet causes some initial warming that melts some ice.

Melting ice leaves behind open ocean water that has a much lower reflectivity (or albedo) than that of ice. Open ocean water absorbs about 80 percent more solar radiation than sea ice does. And so as the sun warms the ocean, even more ice melts, in a vicious circle.

This ice-albedo feedback is one of the main reasons warming is happening far faster in the high north, where there are vast stretches of sea ice, than anywhere else on Earth.

Continue reading full article...

And yet, another fantastic article from the NY Times, way back in Feb 2007

"On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role."

Where do Republicans stand on Global Warming?

The question: "Do you think it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that that the Earth is warming because of man made problems?"

Way too often do we see them flip flop on issues as they are flipping and flopping now. They've gone from staunch denial that it even exists to accepting that it exists but not human related to saying that humans are partially to cause but that the liberal agenda is wacky!

Here is a reminder of their beliefs. Let’s continue to monitor their flip-floppiness as time marches on…and as sea levels rise.

Satellites witness lowest Arctic ice coverage in history

It is mind boggling to sit and watch man’s inhumanity to man flourish or even (man’s war on nature) while those sitting right next to me suffer from cognitive dissonance. Where one might say, “boy, why did we attack Iraq?” and our neighbor would respond with, “You love terrorism!”

One might question the actions of our government while our neighbor calls us “Anti-Patriotic.” Again, we might say, “Our human activity is resulting in an a maximal release of greenhouse gases such as CO2 and CH4, known greenhouse gases, which have a direct effect on our environment causing not only an increase in global ambient temperature as well as the resulting influx of IR radiation and melting of global permafrost and polar icecaps and an increase in melanoma at unprecedented levels!”

But our staunch neighbors are resilient in their responses, ever ready as usual, “You’re a communist hippy! You hate business don’t you? You want to see our country fail, you… you.. terrorist you!” The republican/Bush Co./Neocon/Conservative agenda is as it always has been over the past 50 years… “I got mine, sucks to be you!”

Ignorance marches on.

From the European Space Agency Sept. 14, 2007
"Envisat ASAR mosaic of the Arctic Ocean for early September 2007, clearly showing the most direct route of the Northwest Pssage open (orange line) and the Northeast passage only partially blocked (blue line). The dark gray colour represents the ice-free areas, while green represents areas with sea ice."

This animated gif below highlights the changes in sea ice. The ice-free areas appear as dark gray and the sea ice areas as light gray.


Image below.. The McClure Strait is the most direct route of the Northwest Passage and has been fully open since early August 2007.

Republicans/Bush Co./Neocons/Conservatives of all walks of life claim that volcanoes emit more CO2 than we could in a life time. This is utterly false. It is a lie that has been spoon fed to them and they believe it with all their heart. It is a lie when in fact, the exact opposite is true. We have put out more CO2 each year than any volcano does in 10 years.

We all have a choice. What will yours be? To shove your head in the sand? To listen to the propaganda? Or could possibly be somewhere akin to actually getting up, turning off American Idol and doing some research on your own to find out what the real truth is?

Better hurry. I hear Brittany just shaved her head again. Maybe you can catch it on the toob if you’re not too late.