Global Warming

This is a stunning fact Salon has posted:

[...]The League of Conservation Voters analyzed transcripts of TV interviews and debates with the Democratic and Republican candidates. The interviews were conducted by CNN's Wolf Blitzer, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, MSNBC's Tim Russert, Fox News' Chris Wallace and CBS's Bob Schieffer. As of Jan. 25, these five prime-time journalists had conducted 171 interviews with the candidates. Of the 2,975 questions they asked them, only six mentioned the words "climate change" or "global warming." To put that in perspective: three questions mentioned UFOs.

So out of 2,975 questions global warming only gets 6? UFO's almost matched that with 3! This is a crime in itself. Americans are worried about the environment and want to hear solutions, but the media is more worried trying to get that 15 second clip that might spark controversy.

But there global warming is a liberal myth

The level of the Mediterranean Sea is rising rapidly and could increase by up to half a metre in the next 50 years, scientists in Spain have warned

With all the warning signs we keep hearing about why isn't global warming discussed more in the campaigns and debates? This should be one of the leading issues.

Mor e trouble for our planet:

limate change has caused the greatest thaw of Greenland's ice in half a century, perhaps heralding a wider meltdown that would quicken a rise in world sea levels, scientists said on Tuesday.

"We attribute significantly increased Greenland summer warmth and ice melt since 1990 to global warming," a group of researchers wrote in the Journal of Climate, adding to recent evidence of faster Antarctic and Arctic thaws.

Of course the deniers will spin this because of the 50 year mark. They look for any loop hole, without thought of consequence for their ill thinking.

Did anyone thing otherwise?

The United States said on Wednesday it opposed setting firm targets for greenhouse gas cuts at a G8 summit but offered reassurance that its plan for fighting climate change would not undermine U.N. efforts.

President George W. Bush told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he had a "strong desire" to work with her on greenhouse gas cuts beyond 2012 even though he has resisted her appeals for agreement at the June 6-8 summit in Germany.

Police and protesters clashed near the summit venue on the Baltic coast as G8 leaders gathered for a meeting likely to be dominated by issues including climate change, missile defences and Russia's frosty relations with its partners.

Well Bush, that certainly won't make those tree hugging liberals happy - like the NRA:

Nobody loves a loser. Repudiated at the polls last November, President George W. Bush is now being dissed by the National Rifle Association, his once faithful ally. More surprising still, the issue sundering the former friends is one new to the gun-rights organization: conservation.

"The Bush administration has placed more emphasis on oil and gas than access rights for hunters," complained Ronald Schmeits, an NRA vice president, to the Washington Post. The NRA's 4.2 million members increasingly find themselves locked out of prime wildlife areas, not by jackbooted federal bureaucrats but by the oil and gas industry. "Gun rights are still number one," said Schmeits, "but there will be more time and effort spent on this issue as we move forward."

The NRA has long considered it anathema to agree on much of anything with environmentalists, to whom it has imputed antigun and antihunting stands (falsely, in the case of the Sierra Club). For example, the NRA supported Bush's efforts to overturn the Clinton-era "roadless rule," even though it protected a huge swath of game-rich public land from logging, mining, and other development. It also backed extreme anti-environmental (but pro-gun-rights) politicians like former senator Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and former representative Richard Pombo (R-Calif.).

In recent years, however, polls have shown substantial majorities of hunters and fishers increasingly opposed to the Bush administration's policies on public lands and wildlife. In addition, environmental groups like the Sierra Club have been reaching out to hunters and anglers, and that effort may be paying off. "When the NRA starts talking like the Sierra Club," wrote Bob Marshall, outdoors editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, "you know good times have arrived for fish, wildlife--and generations of sportsmen to come."

A vast majority of this country wants something done about global warming. Even big corporate CEO's are working to get more done and want the government to increase regulations. Just Bush and his extremist neo-con buddies want to ignore the problem. It just proves they care nothing about the planet, which also means they care nothing about life.

Wow Bush must be a liberal! He is going to the G8 to promote awareness on global warming. Well that is what the wingnuts are saying, but check out this story from today:

The Bush administration is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space, just as the president tries to convince the world the U.S. is ready to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases.

A confidential report to the White House, obtained by The Associated Press, warns that U.S. scientists will soon lose much of their ability to monitor warming from space using a costly and problem-plagued satellite initiative begun more than a decade ago.

Bush is the most dangerous person when it comes to the well being of our planet. Luckily the House Science Committee will be holding a hearing about this on Thursday.

Sometimes you hear praise from the most unlikely of places. Today it comes from Joe Scarborough:

I spent Saturday with Sheryl Crow and Laurie David. No fist fights. No verbal insults. Just a couple of Hollywood heavyweights and a red state guy talking about saving the planet.

Whether you agree or disagree with their environmental message, I suspect you would be impressed with these women's dedication if you got the chance to spend the day with them.

On the tour bus after Crow and David's University of Maryland concert, I told Laurie she had the passion of a Southern Baptist preacher.

This is a woman on a mission from God.

Read on

OK - this is priceless.

I can just picture Rove running away with his fingers in his ears and stomping his feet yelling; "Don't tell me about it. If I don't hear it then it isn't real!!!!".

And with that we now see we have a White House of pussies!

This is great decision for the entire planet. Think Progress has all the details.

There was a lot of talk this week about Al Gore's utility bill. When a right wing smear machine released a statement that Gore's utility bill was $30,000 last year, the typical vultures jumped on it. Their support of the claims was nothing more than a picture:

This picture was spread around the right wing blogs as "exposing Gore". The only problem is that it did nothing to explain Gore's bill. It was simply given a caption "Every family has a different carbon footprint". That is very true. They failed to mention that Gore and his wife run their offices out of their home, plus have the security that accompanies a former vice-President at their home. These add up to the bill, but the most damming part for the smear machine comes from the TVA, Gore's energy supplier. The TVA released a statement regarding the claims and said that the Gores do get their energy from renewable resources and they pay almost double for that. The TVA also said that Gore's actual energy usage is less than a lot of smaller homes. Keith Olbermann gave a run down of this statement, and you can view it here.

But this smear attack against the world's most famous global warming warrior is not stopping other countries from taking action. Last month Australia announced that all incandescent light bulbs will be banned in their country within 3 years. Now the European Union is following suit:

Last month was the warmest January on record. It isn't shocking. Here in Ohio we had days in the 60's and sickness was high (myself included). Now we just got through below 0 days. I know people will rush to say "well then everything averages out", but one effect of global warming is the huge swings in weather patterns just like what is happening.

While on this subject, an interesting article has appeared by the AP which talks about 4 states possibly diverting conservation funds.

The UN report on climate change has come out and says global warming is now "unstoppable". So who do we thank for getting to this point? Here is a starter:

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Yup - the greedy bastards at $75,000 a minute Exxon are a big factor behind this. Of course they couldn't have got this far with out help from Bush himself. Since the rest of the world actually takes global warming more seriously than we do, this makes another great reason for them to hate us. Thats ok. Once we are all dead because this planet can not sustain life anymore, these idiots will be nothing either. They can't take the money with them and I hope there is really a hell as people like this will be very welcomed.

The chairman of Virgin Group has pledged $3 billion over the next 10 years to combating global warming. CNN has all the details. The world would be much better if the CEO's would take such initiatives as Branson has.

This shows how deep greed really goes:

One Colorado electric cooperative has openly admitted that it has paid $100,000 to a university academic who prides himself on being a global warming skeptic.

Intermountain Rural Electric Association is heavily invested in power plants that burn coal, one of the chief sources of greenhouse gasses that scientists agree is quickly pushing earth's average temperature to dangerous levels.

Scientists and consumer advocates say the co-op is trying to confuse its clients about the virtually total scientific consensus on the causes of global warming.

ABC News has obtained a copy of a nine-page document that IREA general manager Stanley Lewandowski Jr. addressed to the more than 900 fellow members of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

The document is a wide-ranging condemnation of carbon taxes and mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions that Lewandowski writes would threaten to "erode most, if not all, the benefits of coal-fired generation."

That's it . Screw life and our planet, as long as some greedy bastards get their money. These people should be tried as being "environmental terrorists", because that is exactly what they are. Their victims have been and will continue to be far greater than that of any other terrorist organization the world has ever seen. The really bad part is that these are the criminals that the radical right defends.

In my town, Montclair, N.J., we had a once-in-a-generation wind, hail and rain storm last week, uprooting 120-year-old oaks all over our neighborhood. One of those monsters crushed the car of the pitcher on the summer softball team I coach. A neighbor told me it was the worst weather event he's seen in 52 years in the town.

Wherever you are, have you noticed the weird weather patterns in the last few months? Unending, intense rain. High winds. It was in the midst of a 12th day of measurable rain in a 14-day period that I saw An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore movie about global warming.

This is the most apolitical piece of advice I could ever give you, because I realize Al Gore is not popular with all of you. And I really don't care very much about Gore weaving details of his personal life into the global-warming lecture. But you should see this movie and judge the facts for yourself. What's happening out here is no isolated occurrence. It's going to keep happening and it's going to get worse. Facts are facts. And we all need to do something about this phenomenon of the Earth heating up and the polar ice caps melting. This is not exactly the venue to warn the world about global warming, but all you football junkies readying for your fantasy drafts should do one real-world thing in the next couple of weeks: take two hours to see this movie. I'm not saying you'll be glad you did, because it's going to slap you around mentally a bit. But it's something you need to see. You don't want to wake up in 15 years with the Earth permanently damaged and huge portions of the Earth's surface under water, forever.

No that was not written by some "tree hugging liberal", but rather by Peter King, one of Sports Illustrated's most renowned writers. (h/t Think Progress)

OYE has a new place to recruit:

As Gore promotes global-warming movie, a Hillary Rodham Clinton adviser taunts, “Run, Al, run!!” … College Republicans ridicule the movie with Global Warming Beach Parties

Considering a vast majority of Americans do believe in global warming, this could be a good thing. These parties need to be highly publicized just so America can see how out of touch with reality the Republicans are.