Tag Archives: Global warming

environmental news

News flash: Earth sets temp record once again

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This just in: Planet Earth just set yet another record for temperatures around the globe during a calendar year.

2014 was 0.07 degrees hotter than the previous record year, says the National Climatic Data Center.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/16/world/earth-hottest-year/index.html?

Will that put the kibosh on the climate-change deniers? Do not even bet on that. Not for a minute.

They’ll suggest that the scientists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration are much of politically driven zealots whose aim is to destroy the fossil fuel industry.

They likely might contend that the White House cooked up the numbers just to advance their agenda aimed at developing those nasty clean-energy alternatives. You know, those wind farms and solar panels that are harvesting the wind and the sun and producing actual energy to heat and cool our homes.

Weather forecasters began keeping worldwide temperatures in 1880. The year just past set a record. Who or what is responsible? Scientists say it’s humans. Other scientists it’s all part of Earth’s ecological cycle which repeats itself about, oh, every other millennia.

Let’s be mindful, though, of an important factor.

No matter the cause, billions of human beings are going to be affected by the changes occurring in our climate. Storms are getting more severe. Ice caps are receding. Rainy regions are getting less rain. Sea levels are rising.

And the world’s 7 billion souls — and counting — are standing right in the path of Mother Nature’s infinite power.

I don’t know about you, but I worry for Planet Earth.

 

environmental news

Less ice, more water, more danger

I keep wondering when the climate-change deniers are going to get the message: Earth’s climate is changing and the consequences of that change are potentially catastrophic.

A new report suggests that the ice in Antarctica not only is melting, but its rate of melt is accelerating. When the ice melts, it creates lots and lots of water. What happens, then, to the coastal communities that sit next to our oceans?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/12/03/global_warming_antarctica_is_losing_more_than_6_billion_tons_of_ice_annually.html

It’s science. It’s backed up with photographic evidence. It’s on the link attached to this blog post.

Yet some American politicians — egged on by extremists — keep suggesting that climate change is some kind of hoax. It’s a plot to “destroy the oil industry.” It’s a political gimmick.

Come on!

The debate shouldn’t be about whether Earth’s climate is changing. It should be about its cause.

I continue to believe that humankind has played a large role in the changing climate.

Those greenhouse gases do have an impact. The deforestation of much of the planet’s earth surface has an impact.

The effect of that activity can be seen through satellite pictures.

It’s science, man!

 

environmental news, International news

Here come the 'snow trolls'

Yes, this story was inevitable, given the brutal cold snap that has smacked much of the country.

A leftish media watchdog group refers to them as “snow trolls,” the folks who think that since it’s cold outside that global warming/climate change is a liberal plot.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/07/cold-winter-weather-bring-on-the-snow-trolls/197464

My answer always to those who think like that simply is this: Look at the big picture, the longer term.

Some noted publications have noted, for example, that the Texas Panhandle will be wetter and colder than normal this winter. I’ll cite the Farmer’s Almanac as one such source. Its accuracy is about as reliable as most weather forecasters, which likely isn’t very reliable.

But it got cold around here the past few days and in this part of the world, which is full of climate-change deniers, it provides plenty of grist for the so-called “snow trolls” to suggest the liberal plot conspiracy is at work regarding climate change.

Lake Erie is producing mountains of lake-effect snow in upstate New York. The Buffalo Bills are supposed to play host to a professional football game Sunday, but it looks dicey.

I know that the debate is ongoing. I also know that folks produce all kinds of scientific evidence that the planet is actually cooling off. There also is other evidence that suggests the opposite is happening. Year over year temperatures are increasing.

Those polar ice caps? They really are shrinking.

But as the comedian Stephen Colbert joked, the “snow trolls” sound like the guy who says “hunger is cured because I ate tonight.”

 

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Hottest May in human history

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http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/may-was-hottest-recorded-history-n138446

Planet Earth just experienced the hottest May in recorded history.

That’s according to those left-wing, socialist, tree-hugging, anti-business organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the Japanese government.

OK, so the reaction to this latest report will be quite predictable.

The righties will contend it’s all cooked up, fabricated, tailored to support the climate-change agenda being put forward by the communists who run the White House. The lefties will say these findings prove what they’ve been saying all along, which is that Earth is getting hotter.

I haven’t yet decided how I feel about who’s to blame for what I believe to be happening, which is that the planet is warming up.

Is it manmade or is it part of the planet’s evolutionary cycle?

A lot of scientific data suggest that human beings are largely responsible for this, through the emission of greenhouse gases and the deforestation of large tracts of land that used to serve as a counterbalance to what humans spew into the atmosphere.

I tend to believe the data. I haven’t yet drawn any firm conclusions. I’m still open to the possibility that Earth is beginning a cycle repeated every million years or so.

NOAA, NASA and the Japanese, though, have laid it out — once more — for all the world to see. This past May was the hottest on record. How can we possibly deny that the climate is changing?

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Global warming risks mount up

The United Nations says that global warming is putting billions of Earth residents at risk.

OK. Earth’s climate is changing and we’d better do something about it. Or else. That settles it, right?

Not even close.

http://news.msn.com/world/global-warming-dials-up-our-risks-un-report-says

You see, what’s going to happen now is that global warming-climate change deniers are going to take dead aim at the authors of this report. They will say the U.N. is nothing but a bunch of politically correct greeners, lefties whose major intent is to destroy industry as we’ve known it and, while they’re at it, destroy our way of life.

“We’re now in an era where climate change isn’t some kind of future hypothetical,” said the lead author of the report, Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science in California. “We live in an area where impacts from climate change are already widespread and consequential.”

I happen to concur with what the basic outline of the report, which is that the planet’s climate is changing. I’m trying to keep something of an open mind as to the cause: manmade or part of the planet’s ecological cycle.

But let’s assume for a moment that the change in Earth’s climate is all part the planet’s cycle, that there’s nothing we can do about it. Does that mean, then, that we should just sit back and let nature take its course? I think not, given that the very lives of billions of people are going to be affected by things such as sea level increases and possible loss of livelihood as natural resources diminish and possibly disappear.

Extreme weather is getting more extreme. The planet is getting warmer, believe it or not. Yes, we had a chilly winter with lots of snow and ice. The bigger picture tells us that average temperatures continue to rise.

Would reductions in greenhouse gas emissions matter? Must we end the massive deforestation in the tropics? Yes to both. Is there a relationship between the deforestation and the increase in greenhouse gas? Duh!

That’s one example of how humans can affect the change in climate. The report is much more comprehensive and should be taken seriously.

Yes, especially if it comes from the United Nations.

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Winter chill vs. climate change

Here come the deniers, the folks who take every opportunity to deny what science has declared to be fact, that Earth’s climate is changing.

Much of the nation is locked in a deep freeze. Hey, it’s winter. It happens every year at the time. Correct?

Dear Donald Trump: Winter Does Not Disprove Global Warming

The Texas Panhandle is no different in that regard. Some of our locals like to brag about how cold it gets every winter. The wind howls and we joke about having to string another length of barbed wire to keep the wind from blowing in from the Arctic.

Of course, this time of year brings out those who keep insisting the planet’s climate isn’t changing. Well, it is.

The debate, as I’ve tried to note all along, isn’t whether the climate is changing. The debate ought to center on its cause. Manmade or natural?

I’m not smart enough to make that determination myself. I try to leave it to scientists who’ve spent many lifetimes studying these things. Many of them say human beings have caused the climate to change by (a) emitting carbon dioxide into the air and (b) laying waste to hundreds of millions of acres of forestland populated by trees that replace the CO2 with oxygen. Others say the climate change is part of the epochal cycle the planet experiences every few million years — and that we’re entering the next cycle.

I tend to believe the human factor is the cause.

I’ll repeat something my dear late mother used to say about those who cannot see the big picture, that they’re “so narrow-minded they can look through a keyhole with both eyes.”

Look at the big picture, folks.

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‘Climate change’ is real, new study reports

I recently engaged in a brief Facebook “scuffle” with a couple of former journalism colleagues about climate change. They argue that the planet isn’t warming after all, citing studies published in the United Kingdom that back up their contention.

I’ve argued for some time that climate change is real. The only debate, as I’ve viewed it, is whether it’s caused by human beings or whether it’s part of Earth’s ecological cycle.

Well … yet another new report concludes the climate is changing and that — you guessed it — humankind is the culprit. CNN.com reports that the researchers among the most learned in the world and their findings are considered to be a bellwether.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/world/climate-change-5-things/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Oh, my. Here we go again.

CNN.com reported today: “Climate scientists are 95 percent confident — that is to say, surer than ever — that humans are responsible for at least ‘half of the observed increase in global average surface temperatures since the 1950s.'”

The study comes from the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change. I know exactly what my friends on the right — the climate-change deniers — are going to say about that: The United Nations? Everyone knows the U.N. is run by a bunch of political lefties who are out to destroy the industrial world as we’ve known it. They point to the occasional cold snap that blows in over the Panhandle as “proof” that global warming and climate change are hoaxes cooked up by former Vice President Al Gore’s cabal of environmental whack jobs.

I tend to view the U.N. — and Vice President Gore — more seriously than their critics.

CNN reported further: “Scientists are 90 percent sure that 1981-2010 was the warmest such span in the last eight centuries, and there’s a 66 percent chance that it was the warmest 30-year period in the last 1,400 years.

“While the last 15 years have not warmed as quickly, we’ve seen steady warming over most of the globe, and we haven’t seen a below-average temperature month since February 1985.”

Is this the end of the debate? Hardly. It’s just going to heat up even more … kind of like the way the planet has been getting hotter.

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Yep, the planet is warming

My late mother had a saying that took to task those who failed to see the big picture.

“That guy is so narrow minded,” Mom would say, “that he can look through a keyhole with both eyes.”

It always made for a good chuckle when she said it, but her wry wit seems a bit more topical these days when I hear people debate whether Planet Earth is getting warmer. More evidence has arrived that suggests it is doing exactly that.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/08/planet-continues-to-warm-to-new-normal/

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has issued a report that talks about melting ice caps, rising sea levels, loss of marine habitat and threats to coastal communities on every continent. The average annual temperature worldwide is getting warmer, NOAA reports.

The San Antonio Express-News reports that the State of the Climate report also notes, “Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reached 400 parts per million last May, and averaged 392.6 for 2012, the highest in 800,000 years.”

The CO2 level is troublesome in this regard: The deforestation of tropical regions in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia is well-known; those trees didn’t just die of “natural causes.” They were cut down by human beings and as we all learned in junior high school science class, vegetation — such as trees — consume CO2 while emitting oxygen.

The global-warming naysayers keep harping on anecdotal evidence that the world isn’t actually getting warmer. They chide environmentalists such as former Vice President Al Gore for crying “wolf!” over the global warming issue. Remember the brutal winter we had in the Amarillo in late 2012 and early 2013? The temps stayed cold for seemingly forever. Yes, the prolonged cold produced plenty of jokes debunking the global warming “alarmists” who supposedly are out to destroy the fossil-fuel industry because of all that gas it spews into the atmosphere.

Let’s not debate that global warming is in fact occurring. We can debate, perhaps, whether it’s manmade or part of the planet’s epochal cycle. Either way, a lot of human beings and wildlife are being put at risk.

Does humankind have a way to stem global warming? Sure it does. First, though, it has to find the will.