The Last Frost

The journal Nature has reported that Bush is actively in the business of suppressing information pointing to the true severity of global warming. Specifically a report on the link between current warming trends and stronger and more intense hurricanes. 

He's avoiding a political backlash due to his hardline support for industries that causes this problem. So who do you think Bush is working for now? Certainly not the American public… but we already knew that.

'US blocking global warming report' » [The Times of India]

I came across this horribly retarded blurb about a study conducted by a so called think tank on the benefits of coal power. I have never before seen such a blatently one sided, and self serving argument.

They argue that coal-fired power plants are good for the public health and evil-bad environmental regulations that result in a reduction of coal usage is what we should all really fear. Come to think of it, nothing makes me feel better than a nice deep breath off a fresh coal fire. Later in the article they try to do a little ass-covering by saying that what will really do the public harm is the damage to the economy if coal plants were not built and used. 

What's so freaking annoying about jackasses that make this sort of argument is that they never ever mention the countless jobs that will be created at newer better power plants that don't require the use of such dirty fuels. New technologies will lead to new economic opportunities which will lead to bigger better things… good things.

It's called change and people who actually believe this kind of shit are afraid of it. If we let people like this rule our world we'll all end up like the dinosaurs and heck maybe in 60 million years some new species can pump our fossilized remains out of the ground and make the same mistake all over again. Now that's bad for public health.

Economic and public health benefits of coal-based energy » [NCPA.org]

Sir Richard Branson, yes he has been knighted by the Queen of England herself, is the head of the Virgin brand which includes the airline Virgin Atlantic. He's calling for the whole aviation industry to work together to find creative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

He even makes some suggestions such as a towing system where airplanes are towed to and from the runways instead of idling their engines for lengthy periods of time. He claims could reduce on the ground fuel costs by up to 90%. 

Righto. 

Branson urges cooperation on climate change »  [Guardian Unlimited]

California Governor Schwarzenegger has signed into law the nations first cap on greenhouse gas emissions. The law which I wrote about previously here, picks up where our federal government is failing. Even though Schwarzenegger used to (does he still?) drive around in a hummer, it's great to see him wise up.

Speaking about the law, he said, "It will begin a bold new era of environmental protection in California that will change the course of history".

Schwarzenegger signs global warming bill » [Chron.com]

So scientists released a report yesterday that concludes our planet is nearing a global average temperature high that exceeds anything in the last 1 Million years. Since the poles heat first, that means a lot of ice will be melting in the next couple of decades. Oh, and the last time it was this hot the ocean levels were 80 feet higher than they are today. If this is true it makes you wonder how long it will take for the Earth to start reflecting these changes in dangerous ways. 

Global warming nears ‘dangerous’ level » MSNBC.com

So California has filed a suit against six major automobile manufacturers for creating a public nuisance with their product. They stipulate that cars create greenhouse gases (they do), they lead to the warming of the globe (they play a part), and the manufacturers don't give a shit (they don't). So it's seems like the lawsuit is based in reality to me. Besides, the US is a litigious society and sometimes it's the only way to get things done in our country. Otherwise people get too complacent with their paychecks and just want to chill out and watch Sunday Night Football.

So I whole heartily agree with this suit because if they win, it will force automakers to get off their fat lazy asses and start developing a product that isn't such a pain in the globe. Fuel efficient, eco-friendly, and affordable transportation; is it really too much to ask? It's been a hundred years since anyone's done anything significant with 4 wheeled transportation… the vehicles just got faster, more rounded, and more plentiful. 

So anyway, I'm taking a shot at a fellow blogger so please forgive me, but dude this guy is drunk from the cool-aid and needs to be edumacated. His arguments followed by my response:

1) There is no smoking gun evidence that points to humans as the cause of global warming.

Well dude… you can hide behind this argument and you'll probably be successful because it's a very convenient and subtle red-herring. The argument is good because it admits that the globe is warming. It's a crappy argument because there is a shit-load of evidence supporting human-induced global warming, but what about the natural warming and cooling cycles of the earth… yeah… there's that too. So global warming is induced by human activities as well as natural cycles. Who ever said that these or any other cause of warming act independent of each other? You're busy distracting people with this silly argument, the only goal of which is to place blame on one or the other while a serious problem gets worse. I bet when you fart you point to the guy next to you and blame it on them too.

2) Why is it just the auto-industry that gets blamed? Why not the consumers who buy them? Isn't that like blaming gun companies for crimes committed by gun owners?

(more…)

The head of Virgin has pledged to donate all the profits from Virgin's transportation companies such as the airline Virgin Atlantic, and his train service Virgin Trains, to fight global warming for the next 10 years. He said that he feels transportation companies need to need to lead the way towards developing, "environmentally friendly business strategies". The money totalling about $3 Billion will be invested through a new division called Virgin Fuels.

I'm writing this from the UK, just flown on Virgin Atlantic from New York to London and can I just say that the airline is one of the best in the air today and now I'm 200% more psyched about giving them my business. 

Branson makes $3bn climate pledge » [BBC News]

Some people have been touting Nuclear Energy as being the solution to global warming. Afterall nuclear power plants produce no greenhouse gasses in their day to day operations. Well, if you don't count the emissions released during the arduous process of Uranium mining and enrichment, which are considerable. Oh, and if you're able to ignore the pesky problem of nuclear waste. 

Nuclear waste is some pretty nasty stuff. If a living organism (cockroaches and a few others excluded) gets even close to the stuff unprotected it begins to damage it's DNA, more than likely causing a nasty death. The stuff also has a tendency to stay this way for extremely long periods of time, like 250,000 years or so. Think about that… 250 milleniums. Why a mere 4 thousand years ago some Egyptians were working on building these cool new structures called pyramids. 10 thousand years ago our ancestors were living in caves and just figuring out how to grow food.

So if you have to store something so toxic that it will kill almost any living thing that comes near to it, how do you ensure that the "danger" message get's through? What can you do when you don't know what species you will be communicating with, what language they will speak? How do you ensure anything you build today will be around by then? Well these guys have some ideas.

My opinion is that this is exactly why nuclear energy sucks so damn much.

Future Be Warned: Keep Out! » [Wired News]

Al Gore is calling for an end to payroll taxes including social security tax. Rather than taxing both people and companies for simply existing, corporations would instead be taxed based on their pollution output. This would encourage companies to pollute less while doing absolutely nothing to the revenue generated by the existing payroll taxes. 

Well it makes sense to me.

Gore Calls For Immediate Freeze on C02 Emissions, Elimination of Payroll Taxes » [Think Progress]

Undersea deposits of Methane could be released by the warming of the oceans, leading to further global warming. These underwater methane ices are called clathrates and scientists have been able to identify two distinct periods in recent geological history that huge amounts of methane have been released by the warming of the oceans. The discovery of this potential positive feedback loop could mean bad things for our climate in the future.

Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and there is a lot of it stored under the oceans.  

Global warming could trigger methane release » [Oroville Mercury Register]