Tag Archives: Antarctica

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!

 

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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.