Misinformation seems to be a regular part of the emotional controversy over global warming. A case in point is the March 2 letter from Don Cazer. Mr. Cazer maintains that global warming is merely overheated rhetoric, but arguments he presents are based on false assertions. One incorrect claim is that four of Earth’s warmest years on record occurred in the 1930s. The confusion arises because weather was unusually warm in the United States during the 1930s (the Dust Bowl years), but hot weather in the United States was offset by cold weather elsewhere. It’s the global average that matters, not local weather in one part of the globe. As a whole, Earth is warmer now than in the 1930s. Mr. Cazer dismisses the well-established fact that CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas. One only needs to look at our sister planet, Venus, with its dense CO2 atmosphere and a surface hot enough to melt lead to understand the fallacy of this statement. It’s true that in the past, warming occurred first and was followed by an increase in atmospheric CO2 level. The current trend is different, in that CO2 increased first, and was followed by warmer temperatures. That is exactly the pattern that is expected if human CO2 emissions are affecting climate. Even so, it is far from the only evidence that humans are affecting global temperature. Since 2001, greatly improved computer models and an abundance of data of many kinds have strengthened the conclusion that human emissions may soon cause serious climate change. Careful temperature measurements on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere over many years have revealed trends that are best understood in terms of greenhouse gas accumulation. Detailed isotopic analyses of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and in the oceans point to fossil fuels as a major source of increased carbon dioxide. How warm will it get in our lifetime? Our children’s lifetime? No one knows for sure, but uncertainty cuts both ways The Arctic has been warming faster than expected. The Arctic polar ice cap is much more sensitive to climate change than Antarctica. Year-to-year weather is variable and next year will not necessarily see another record melting. The long-term trend, however, is clear. A year-round ice-free Arctic ocean before 2030 now seems plausible. This means Earth will lose an extensive reflective surface. An open Arctic ocean will absorb heat whereas the polar ice cap now reflects 90 percent of incident solar energy In addition, warming of permafrost in Alaska is releasing a substantial quantity of methane, another potent greenhouse gas. As NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally recently noted, “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming. Now ... the canary has died.” BOB MULFORD Niskayuna
A case in point is the March 2 letter from Don Cazer. Mr. Cazer maintains that global warming is merely overheated rhetoric, but arguments he presents are based on false assertions.
And perhaps Mr. Mulford's arguments that he presents are based on false assertions!?!?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
"Earth Hour" goes global By Jeremy Lovell and Eric Auchard
People switched off lights around the world on Saturday, dimming buildings, hotels, restaurants and bars to show concern with global warming.
Up to 30 million people were expected to have switched off their lights for 60 minutes by the time "Earth Hour" -- which started in Suva in Fiji and Christchurch in New Zealand -- has completed its cycle westward.
More than 380 towns and cities and 3,500 businesses in 35 countries signed up for the campaign that is in its second year after it began in 2007 in Sydney alone.
"Earth Hour shows that everyday people are prepared to pull together to find a solution to climate change. It can be done," said James Leape of WWF International which was running the campaign.
Lights at Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge were switched off and Australians held candle-lit beach parties, played poker by candlelight and floated candles down rivers.
In Bangkok some of the city's business districts, shopping malls and billboards went dark, although street lights stayed on. One major hotel invited guests to dine by candle light and reported brisk business.
In Copenhagen, the Tivoli and the Royal Palace and the opera darkened for an hour, along with many street lights.
"In the central square a lot of people were standing looking at the stars," said Ida Thuesen, spokeswoman for WWF Denmark. "It's not often you can see the stars in a city."
GOOGLE GOES DARK
In a tip of its virtual hat to the event, the background of Google's home page turned to black from white on more than a dozen country sites including Google.com. A message on the site read: "We've turned the lights out. Now it's your turn."
Floodlights went out at landmarks in Budapest, including its castle, cathedral and parliament.
In Britain, 26 town and city councils signed up to switch off nonessential lights as did several historic buildings including Prince Charles' private residence Highgrove House, London City Hall, Winchester Cathedral and the Government Communication Headquarters radio monitoring station. The south coast town of Brighton turned off the lights on its pier.
The movement crossed the Atlantic to the United States and Canada, where the 553-metre (1,815 ft) CN Tower in Toronto and the surrounding skyline were plunged into temporary darkness.
In Toronto's trendy Queen West neighborhood, many restaurants offered candlelight dining. The golden arches at a corner McDonalds were dark, though the fast-food restaurant itself was brightly lit.
Closer to downtown, news helicopters swooped low over city streets, where banks had switched off the neon signs atop their skyscrapers. "I would have expected fewer helicopters during earth hour," said one disgruntled spectator.
San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and Chicago's Sears Tower and Soldier Field football stadium were slated to take part in the closing hours of Saturday's global event.
Buildings account for about one-third of the carbon emissions that scientists say will boost global average temperatures by between 1.4 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century bringing floods and famines and putting millions of lives at risk.
Organizers of Earth Hour said that while switching off a light for one hour would have little impact on carbon emissions, the fact that so many people were taking part showed how much interest and concern at the climate crisis had taken hold.
(Additional reporting by James Thornhill in Sydney, Chisa Fujioka in Tokyo, Ploy Chitsomboon in Bangkok and Alister Doyle in Oslo, and Janet Guttsman and Renato Andrade in Toronto; editing by Giles Elgood and Philip Barbara)
Global warming? They’re really feeling it in western U.S. BY MARGOT ROOSEVELT Los Angeles Times
The American West is heating up faster than any other region of the United States, and more than the Earth as a whole, according to a new analysis of 50 scientific studies. For the past five years, from 2003-07, the global climate averaged 1 degree Fahrenheit warmer than its 20th century average. During the same period, 11 Western states averaged 1.7 degrees warmer, the analysis reported. The 54-page study, “Hotter and Drier: The West’s Changed Climate,” was released Thursday by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization — a coalition of local governments, businesses and nonprofi t groups. It was based largely on calculations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report reveals “the growing consensus among scientists who study the West that climate change is no longer an abstraction,” according to Bradley H.Udall of the University of Colorado, whose work was cited in the study. “The signs are everywhere.” Carbon dioxide pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industrial emitters is a major contributor to global warming. The Environmental Protection Agency is under court order to address cutting greenhouse gases, and Congress is considering legislation to curb them. STRESS ON WATER SYSTEM The consequences of Western temperature increases, the report said, are evident in a rash of heat waves. Montana, Idaho and Wyoming had their hottest Julys on record last summer, while Phoenix suffered 24 days with temperatures above 110 degrees. The Colorado River basin, which stretches from Wyoming to Mexico, is in the throes of a record drought. About 30 million people in fast-growing cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Las Vegas depend on water from the Colorado and its tributaries, which also drive the region’s agricultural economy and hydro-electric industry. The river’s two main reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, are now only 45 percent and 50 percent full, respectively. Globally, warming varies according to region — with more heating over land than over oceans. In California, with its coastal location, the study showed an increase of 1.1 degrees above the global average over the past five years. Arid interior states, including Utah, Wyoming, Arizona and Montana, experienced rises above 2 degrees higher than in the world overall. “Temperature rises have been much larger and more noticeable in the western states,” said Kelly T. Redmond, regional climatologist at Nevada’s Desert Research Institute. “The past 10 years have been particularly warm, unlike any similar 10-year period we have seen over the past 115 years.” According to Udall, the data suggests that as time goes on, the trend will accelerate — with the West warming about 1.5 times faster than the global average. Martin Hoerling, a NOAA meteorologist, has predicted that the West could heat up as much as five degrees by midcentury. In Alaska, the annual mean air temperature has risen four to five degrees Fahrenheit over the past three decades. CALL FOR ACTION “If we don’t want this problem to get really bad, we need to pass a climate bill with teeth,” said Theo Spencer, a project manager at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group that funded the Rocky Mountain Climate analysis. “Western senators need to take the lead, considering what’s at stake in their states.” A bill to slash greenhouse gases nationwide, sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., is expected to reach the floor of the Senate by June. A recent tally by the newsletter Environment & Energy Daily counted 44 votes for the bill so far. As many as 10 Republican senators from western states are leaning against the bill, according to the newsletter, which based its research on interviews with lawmakers, staff, industry and environmental groups. In the absence of federal action, states are moving ahead. California is drafting rules to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by midcentury. And six other Western states — Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington — have joined it in a regional compact to curb global warming pollution.
Mr.Gore finally got folks to flash their lights for him......why doesn't he just go to Hollywood and get on the big screen......he must be on some kind of drug to make him happy when the lights aren't on for him......here's your spotlight Mr.Gore.......oh wait---we're saving energy, never mind........
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
This post is by Ramon Cruz, Senior Policy Analyst for Living Cities at Environmental Defense Fund.
It's ironic. In many parts of the world, there is no clean drinking water. Here in the U.S., pure, drinkable water flows out of every tap, and yet Americans buy a staggering amount of bottled water. We pay big bucks for it, too — more than $15 billion a year.
Worse of all, the bottles are overflowing our landfills and contributing to global warming. Take a look at this video from Doug James:
Also illustrating the case against bottled water:
More than a quarter of bottled water is just processed tap water, including Pepsi's Aquafina and Coca-Cola's Dasani. Despite this, bottled water consumption is growing at 10 percent a year, faster than any other beverage. We drink 15 times more bottled water today than we did in 1976. This doesn't mean we're healthier, despite the ads. Federal regulations for municipal water are far more stringent. Bottled water rules allow higher levels of many contaminants, with more lenient requirements for filtration, testing, and reporting. See NRDC’s bottled water report for details of contaminants by brand. The earth isn’t healthier for it, either. According to the Pacific Institute’s fact sheet (PDF), manufacturing the 30+ billion plastic water bottles we bought in 2006 required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil, produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, and used three times the amount of water in the bottle. And these numbers don't include transporting the bottles. Nearly 25 percent of bottled water crosses national borders before reaching consumers.
Adding in transportation, the energy used comes to more 50 million barrels of oil equivalent -- enough to run 3 million cars for a year.
Case study: Fiji water Fiji Water produces more than a million bottles of water a day, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have reliable drinking water (see this Fast Company article). Adding to the irony, Fiji itself uses almost no bottled water, according to a Pacific Institute report (PDF). They export it.
Shipping Fiji Water around the world increases its environmental footprint. Manufacturing and shipping a one-liter bottle produces over half a pound of greenhouse gas emissions and uses nearly 7 times the amount of water in the bottle, according to calculations by Pablo Päster on TriplePundit.
The heavy use of water is as serious as the greenhouse gas emissions. Water is fast becoming a scarce resource.
What about recycling? Recycling would help, but we don’t usually do it. Less than 20 percent of the 28 billion single-serving water bottles that Americans buy each year are recycled. Some estimates are as low as 12 percent.
According to a Container Recycling Institute report (PDF), the national recycling rate for all beverage containers is 33 percent. In states with deposit systems, the rate jumps to 65-95 percent. But of the 11 states with deposit laws, only three include containers for non-carbonated beverages (like water), though non-carbonated beverages now comprise 27 percent of the market.
Last November, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a national bottle bill to address global warming that includes water bottles and other non-carbonated beverage containers.
The beverage industry, which long resisted deposit laws, has started to cooperate — mainly because it sees bottled water as the answer to the soda sales slump. Following months of bad publicity, manufacturers like Coke, Pepsi, and Nestlé have begun making lighter-weight plastic bottles and are encouraging consumers to recycle.
Better yet, carry tap water If you buy bottled water, recycle the bottle. But the better solution — for you and the environment — is to drink tap water, both at home and at restaurants:
Tap water is cleaner than most bottled water. Tap water is delivered to homes and offices for $0.002 a gallon. Bottled water, which can cost as much per gallon as gasoline, is a thousand times more expensive. The quality of municipal water in the U.S. is generally excellent. Don’t let the recent reports about pharmaceuticals in tap water deter you — see this TreeHugger post for why.
But if you don’t trust tap water or you have old plumbing or you think tap water tastes funny, then try a water filter like those from PUR or Brita. To learn more about water filters, check out the rated list of water filter review sites at Consumer Search.
To carry water with you, use a reusable container filled with tap water. But don’t reuse single-use water bottles. This can expose you to bacterial build-up and carcinogens leached from the plastic.
Quite a few companies make reusable water bottles. There’s an ongoing debate about the safety of the polycarbonate plastic some use, but there are many safe reusable bottles made from other materials.
Use it or lose it National Geographic’s Green Guide notes, "the federal share of funding for water systems has declined from 78 percent in 1973 to 3 percent today." This places the financial burden almost entirely on local governments.
Food and Water Watch also talks about how important it is to stop this trend and maintain the quality of municipal water. Its Take Back the Tap (PDF) report gives a detailed overview of the issues surrounding tap water versus bottled water.
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