Ocean Acidification: Climate Change’s Evil Twin

Ocean Acidification: Climate Change’s Evil Twin

“People might be surprised to learn that greenhouse gases (and in particular, carbon dioxide) are also altering the ocean and pose an independent and equally serious threat to marine life. In fact this change, making the oceans more acidic, is a direct threat to the survival of lobsters, oysters and other marine animals that are an essential element in the life and culture of New England…. When carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, it forms carbonic acid. According to the UN, the ocean has become 30% more acidic since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.”

http://www.clf.org/blog/?p=23

Duke Energy quits coal front group over climate bill — GE and Caterpillar should do the same
http://climateprogress.org/2009/09/02/duke-energy-quits-clean-coal-front-group-accce-over-climate-bill-ge-caterpillar-alstom/

Study links drought with rising emissions
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/global-warming/study-links-drought-with-rising-emissions-20090815-elpf.html

New report shows China maintains momentum in its clean revolution
http://www.theclimategroup.org/news_and_events/chinas_clean_revolution_ii/

China’s Emissions Plans May Cost $438 Billion a Year, FT Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aSUCF5ODdugo

Beijing’s Growing Appetite for Climate Action
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/08/peaking_duck.html

China study urges greenhouse gas caps, peak in 2030
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE57G0C520090817

‘China will sign’ global treaty if U.S. passes climate bill, E.U. leader says
http://climateprogress.org/2009/08/26/china-sign-global-treaty-if-senate-passes-climate-bill-europe/

Is China The New OPEC For Green Energy?
http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/09/is_china_the_new_opec_for_green_energy.php

Poll shows support for energy bill

“Further, 60 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for their senator if he or she supported the bill while just 26 percent said they’d be less inclined to re-elect their senator for backing the “American Clean Energy and Security Act.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/26698.html#ixzz0Q4kYGWRU

More “We’re All Going to Die” Links

For most people, the Scopes Monkey trial is a symbol of rigid Fundamentalism trying to take science out of the education process, but not to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They are actually calling for the EPA to hold a “Scopes”-like hearing on the evidence climate change is manmade:

http://climateprogress.org/2009/08/25/memo-to-alcoa-kodak-ibm-nike-pepsi-toyota-luddite-chamber-of-commerce-seeks-the-scopes-monkey-trial-global-warming/

It’s funny that the same side that argues Global Warming is like a religion use their own highly-questionable interpretations of the Bible to make their points:

http://climateprogress.org/2009/07/31/lobbyist-dick-armey-gospel-of-pollution-global-warming/

Here’s an article about how three benchmark glaciers used by geological surveys shows that a major meltdown is imminent:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/07/global.warming/index.html

Here’s some declassified spy satellites hidden by the Bush Administration showing retreating polar icecaps:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-administration

Here’s the latest in a series of studies that found glaciers melting faster than anyone predicted:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/07/global.warming/index.html

Here’s an article about how water melting from Antarctica could flood Washington D.C.:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16545-antarctic-bulge-could-flood-washington-dc.html

Here’s an article about how hot climates can create sluggish economies:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106697286

“Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response.”

Here’s the Top Ten Bogus Statements (BS) in the Climate Change Debate:

http://climateprogress.org/author/bill-becker/

Here’s a funny Daily Show clip about the birthers:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-22-2009/the-born-identity

Here’s an article about how Bush believed the Iraq War had been foretold in Revelation as the prophecy of ‘Gog and Magog’:

http://sedulia.blogs.com/sedulias_translations/2009/05/bush-chirac-gog-and-magog.html

Andrew Sullivan on the Bailouts:

“It’s despotism when we lose, freedom when we win. We should have more confidence in the people and the country than this. We should also have more charity to our political opponents – who after all are contending with hideous problems bequeathed to them by … by … well suddenly we Republicans cannot seem to remember who preceded Barack Obama in office. To listen to us, you’d think that the bailouts and takeovers started on January 20, 2009, not the previous March. You’d never know that TARP was supported by almost every Republican commentator, including the editors of National Review. Or that Vice President Cheney argued urgently in favor of the rescue of the Detroit automakers. Or that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac enjoyed the backing of Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers.

One bad election converts us from ardent admirers of the American people to glum declinists who can see only a miserable moldering of a once great nation. I should have thought that conservative patriotism was made of stronger stuff.”

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/07/who-was-president-before-obama.html

How Dumb Can Man Be?

Before this crap started, generally everyone agreed health care had to be reformed. Even a lot of conservatives were congratulating Michael Moore on his movie ‘Sicko’ two years ago to my utter shock. Now it’s riot city. It’s not that I’m disappointed the crazies outnumber the reform protestors; it’s that they seem to even outnumber the war protests. The Baby Boom generation has failed us. It’s like for a brief glimpse in the 60s, the vast majority of the country’s youth understood that we needed to stop feeding the war machine and ferment better racial and gender equality throughout the nation, but now they’ve all retreated to their suburbs, cradling their guns in fear of the African Anti-Christ and his army of Socialist Gun-stealers.

I heard lately that although our material wealth has increased three times over since the 50s, we have steadily become less happy every decade, despite the explosion in mood-altering and sexual enhancement pharmaceuticals. Yet people were happier in the 60s with nothing but ragweed. A large part of it is because people know only half as many friends as they did back then, but I guess a lot of it can be attributed to the American need to outdo your neighbors and buy a bigger house.

I also read a Gallup Poll from 10 years ago that said one in five Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth. I’m having a hard time believing it. I keep thinking that most of them must have misread it or that it was phrased in a way that made them think the question was from their own perspective. Can people really be that stupid? It’s becoming a very transcendental question to me.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/3742/new-poll-gauges-americans-general-knowledge-levels.aspx

Obama’s Death Panel

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.” -Sarah Palin, referring to the discretionary option to speak to a representative about a living will in a completely unresolved, hypothetical health bill

I would welcome a government-run “death panel” to our current system. What they are worried about is hospitals putting a price on life based on how much you are worth to society, which seems a lot better than our current system of putting a price on life based on how much money you have. Even fascist dystopias didn’t have doctors overprescribing downers and performing unnecessary surgeries on rich people. I once knew a woman who claimed to have been denied an organ for being rude to the administrator. I think if it came to basing life or death on my resume or my congeniality, I’d probably pick the former.

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.” – Investors Business Daily, in an editorial.

http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2009/08/10/it-doesnt-take-stephen-hawking-to-figure-this-one-out/

Investors Business Daily has corrected its editorial, removing all mention of Stephen Hawking. And Hawking himself has responded, telling the UK’s Guardian:

“I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”