Is This Is Just The Beginning?

I'm pretty happy to see the MSM covering the changing climate this week the way it should have been covered these last few years. I'm afraid the so-called tipping points are long past but there's always hope. It might be a lot more difficult to be glib or optimistic if I were in Moscow where toxic smoke has now enveloped a rain-soaked Moscow and doctors have warned that this summer's heat wave could drive more people to alcohol and suicide. Or in Pakistan where the scale of Pakistan's floods are considered to be worse than the 2004 tsunami, Haiti and Kashmir quakes combined.

As former US Army Chief of Staff, General Gordon Sullivan says, we can argue about the metrics of climate change (exact consequences , when where, how, etc) but the trends and indicators all point to it happening now. In his estimation it also points to likely wars for oil, food water and mass migrations of a kind and on a scale heretofore unseen in modern history. This is pretty dire stuff - the kind of thing that usually results in people being called alarmists. The people in the re-posted video below are not the kind prone to being alarmists. They are men who rose to the very top of their profession in a very conservative organization: the US Military.



Sadly, there's not much hope for this spate of recent disasters moving the powers that be to take the action necessary to change the current dynamics. Let's hope they're wrong.

So while the MSM sorts out how they're going to report on all these natural catastrophes and their possible causes, I thought it might be a good time to look at sea level rise, what's predicted and what it might mean in the near and long term future.

Starting with this report from October of 2009, where researchers reporting in the journal Geology, found that 20th-century sea-level rise to be three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years. Then in December of the same year, a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences warned that sea levels could rise much faster than previously expected, and by the year 2100, global sea level could rise between 75 and 190 centimetres (30 to 74 inches).

In April of this year research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, made what is the first assessment of how quickly floating ice is being lost today. This is causing sea levels to rise -- by a mere hair's breadth today, but possibly much more if melting trends continue.

And the most recent research predicts sea levels rising by as much as one metre before the end of this century. Melting glaciers, it is now believed,  may contribute more to the rise in sea levels than scientists have previously realised.

Melting glaciers and the melting ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic will account for 75% of the rise in sea levels, while expansion of the water as it warms will account for 25 %," said Director Jan-Gunnar Winther of the Norwegian Polar Institute.

MSM Wankery Redux

This is a good segue into MSM wankery staring with: I'll bet you weren't aware how vitriolic and relentless the Democrats are. And while all the media talk has been about how those crazy Dems want to do nothing but spend money there's this from Senate Republican Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) who insisted on Sunday that Congress should extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans regardless of their impact on the deficit, even as he and other Republicans are blocking unemployment insurance extensions over deficit concerns. Will the media report it? Will the deluded teaparty types notice?


Media Matters chronicles how stories go from Fox news (no matter how inane or insane) to the MSM. In effect they create news and oft times a whole series of news cycles. Rush picks up on one of those stories and proves he's a pig.

Climate Change suggests two scientists could just as well be called Ocean Change. The oceans are choking on greenhouse gases. Our emissions are changing ocean temperature, pH and circulation with wide-ranging effects on biological productivity and ecosystem health. These are among the conclusions of five review articles published in a special feature on the oceans in a recent issue of Science magazine. Go read the whole thing.

A story that should make everyone sit up and take notice, Lake Superior 20 degrees F warmer than normal for this time of year - that's massive!

Even though the Treasury Department estimates that ending the subsidies to bigoil would decrease domestic oil production by less than one half of one percent, an amendment proposed by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that would have cut $35 billion in tax subsidies to big oil companies, failed to pass, losing 61-35. Every GOP Senator voted against the measure. The good people over at the Wonk Room explain why and how they continue to get away with this.

Democrats try and unite under a single banner to counter teaparty politics, demanding all the change they voted for.

Sunday and I Should Be in the Park

Genuine pushback from David Axelrod the Obama admin on republican lies about the economy.



Six US soldiers get killed in Afghanistan.

The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, taking corporate donations for her teaparty activities. Does that smell corrupt to you? Sure looks like influence peddling to me.

Some good news from the MSM - well, in reality the evidence was in a long time ago but you take good news where you get it - the New York Times acknowledges "climategate" was not a scandal after all.

In another bit of good environmental news, water and life are returning to Iraq's 'Garden of Eden.' Saddam Hussein's draining of the Mesopotamian marshes of Iraq – recorded as the Garden of Eden in the Bible - was one of the most infamous outrages of his regime, leaving a vast area of once-teeming river delta a dry, salt-encrusted desert, emptied of insects, birds and the people who lived on them.



But nearly two decades later the area is buzzing and twittering with life again after local people and a new breed of Iraqi conservationists have restored much of what was once the world's third largest wetland to some of its former glory.

Sadly, that mass of plastic garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean is still there - David de Rothschild set out on an ocean crossing aboard his recycled yacht to highlight pollution of Earth's waters and is shocked by what he found. In the Gulf of Mexico, grappling with a different and very real problem - dead zones.

Word that the Obama administration hasn't been as friendly to scientists as first hoped.

A look back at the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior - and some of Greenpeace's finer moments.

PZ Meyers over at Pharyngula is my new favourite blogger - go have a read of his take on the brain of the Christian conservative.

The Oceans and Climate Science

On this morning's radio show the focus was climate change and the current state of our oceans and their general health. Starting with a story from Science Daily about a newly published report in the latest issue of the journal Science that evaluates the total impact of  climate change, carbon dioxide, pollution and other human-related phenomena on the world's oceans. Scott C. Doney's paper represents a meticulous compilation of the work of others as well as his own research in this area, which includes ocean acidification, climate change, and the global carbon cycle. An important read if you are trying to understand all the factors in play.

Another study published in Science magazine on Friday concurs saying, the world's oceans are virtually choking on rising greenhouse gases, destroying marine ecosystems and breaking down the food chain... The changes could have dire consequences for hundreds of millions of people around the globe who rely on oceans for their livelihoods. The oceans are interconnected of course and included in that study is information about how the temperatures of polar oceans are connected to temperatures in the tropics. Essentially what the study states is that a continued rise in global temperatures could lead to a permanent state of 'El Niño' which would lead to yet more warming, and by the way, the likelihood of increased episodes of extreme weather. The consequences of these changes are too numerous to list but even MSM wankers Time Magazine, have noted some of them - cute penguin alert.

Lastly for your perusal, a diary from Dailykos with news on actions Obama has taken to stem the tide of Mountain Top Removal (MTR) permits issued in the US that is the beginning of the end to the sleazy days of the Bush/Cheney admin allowing polluting corporations to ignore the rule of law. There's also a host of assorted green related news stories.

What We're Up Against

Hello to whomever shows up here!

We've only been doing this a short while and we're trying to establish ourselves as reliable and on top of the news. Between the three of us we haven't as yet developed the facility to take the stories on one at a time so mostly it's daily news wraps. Occasionally there's been the perfect video or article to bring to the attention of whatever reader happens by and we've run a couple of those - but mostly wraps.

We've been way ahead of the curve on our first real effort to bring a story that the MSM wasn't telling the truth about: the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf on a daily basis. Go back to our posting of May the 1st and you'll find, using the information available to us and all, we were informing people who were dropping by that a million gallons (25,000 barrels) or more were pouring into the Gulf. We took umbrage along the way as the numbers were continuously low-balled by BP and the government.

I'm not sure more accurate reporting would have changed things as they now stand but there's a chance that with numbers so large and frightening there might have been a greater sense of urgency - not from BP or government officials - but from the public at large. We still have the power to move these idiots you know. We are not under any obligation to be in their thrall, in fact quite the opposite. Governments get to set policy on our behalf as long as we are satisfied with their behaviour and corporations get to reap from the fat of the land provided they put back, employ, be good citizens and pay their damned taxes!

When they fail to do these things on our behalf we have the power and the duty to act appropriately. Not sit on our asses and take it. "Can I have another sir?" are not the words the people who fought and died to establish western civilization would think suitable for the current state of affairs. We have to act or become extinct before this century concludes.



To celebrate our 100th post, here's a National Geographic video that illustrates why it's important to keep fighting for a cleaner environment and smarter public policy.

Accountability

Been trying not to make all my posts about the disaster in the Gulf of late. It's playing out long, slowly and painfully. We made pretty good calls here based on common sense and decent internet sources. The first being that there was no way the rate of flow was anything like only 5,000 barrel a day. The figure has now been set at 19,000 or so and that's still low-balling the true figure - as is pointed out in the video below by CBS legal correspondent Sharyl Attkisson on Face the Nation:



Maybe BP thinks by playing games with the figures they're going to get away with paying a smaller fine - and maybe they will. They certainly have the resources and wherewithal to try. Corporate citizens are never taken to task the way the rest of us are - or would be if any of us were responsible for the deaths of 11 people and destruction of various flora and fauna that has robbed tens of thousands of people of their livelihoods.

Speaking of corporate accountability in these instances, or lack thereof, word today that those responsible for the tragedy at Bhopal were finally convicted - 25 1/2 years later, of negligence. The seven surviving defendants were sentenced to two years in prison and fined 100,000 rupees, or $2,100.

They were the first criminal convictions from the leak at the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, a central Indian city. The leak killed 3,000 people almost instantly, and thousands more died later from the aftereffects of the toxic gas, an ingredient in pesticides the plant produced.

Maybe BP will get the same deal. Or maybe they'll get the same deal as Exxon, 'cause that's what they really want. They want the rough estimates to be off by 2/3's and to fight it in court for 20 years and then dole out pocket change and pretend they've paid their debt.

The President has been doing his part near as we can tell, but will get little credit as there is little he can do other than try and make the accountable - seems unlikely if BP finds ways to drag it through the courts for 20 years. The reality is that they will have to wait until August when the relief wells have been dug, and even that's not a sure thing, before oil stops gushing into the Gulf. Meanwhile, he's out-numbered by the whores and spinmeisters and those in the pockets of big oil.

For comic relief from all this, try reading about an under-reported spill stemming from the BP offices in the UK.