White House Newsflash: Global Warming VERY LIKELY Caused by Human
…most of the recent global warming is very likely due to human generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.
Very likely caused by humans-now that’s a definitive statement on climate change! Once again the US government has failed to make a clearcut connection between humans and climate change.
Why do we need our government to make an absolute statement that humans are to blame for climate change?
Without such a strong statement linking the human causes and effects of global warming, we are impotent to pass real legislation and regulations that will drastically curb greenhouse gases now! We can’t wait four more years for the next report to come out to say, “Yea, we are screwed and entirely to blame.” A definitive statement by the US government would end the silly debate about global warming that has distracted us from taking action beyond individual citizens. As Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch at the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, stated, “It’s important the government go on record honestly acknowledging this stuff.”
Why would the US government not want to make the connection between climate change and human actions absolute?
The climate science behind the report is not new, and neither is the White House spin. The “Scientific Assesment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States,” report states:
Finally, climate change is very likely to accentuate the disparities already evident in the American health care system. Many of the expected health effects are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the uninsured.
Yet have no fear Americans! White House associate science director Sharon Hays declined to characterize the findings as bad, in a teleconference with reporters. That’s right, increased heat-related deaths and water shortages are not all bad. So what is not negative in the report: The doubt that humans are solely to blame. Now that’s something to celebrate!
I don’t know why the US government cannot admit human blame for climate change. It reminds me of my six-year-old daughter saying she did not drop ice cream on the floor, when she was the only one eating ice cream. Does the government fear it will get in trouble like my daughter and have to clean it up if it admits blame? Would such an admission open up even more litigation opportunities for the states, as well as for individuals to sue polluting corporations? Well, have no fear Americans, our president won’t even read this report. George Bush has already vowed to veto the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act before the Senate even debates the bill, because it will hurt the US economy. Oh yea, blazing wildfires, pestilence, and famine won’t hurt the economy at all.
It didn’t take Mean Joe Green four years to create a political cartoon on the climate change report). Although I disagree with Joe’s idea that the report is entirely “realistic”, given that it does not take a definitive stance on the human causes of climate change, at least the doom and gloom predictions of severe weather, water shortages, heat waves, etc. ring true. As biologist Thomas Lovejoy says of the climate report, “It basically says the America we’ve known we can no longer count on.” It’s a good thing Republicans live on another planet; they’re going to need it.
For the record Bias, I live off-the-grid (and have for 15 years) in the mountains. I grow most of my own food, and I realize that each time I drive my car, I am contributing to global warming (and not MOST LIKELY, but DEFINITELY).
Rick, the link in the post that reads “Scientific Assesment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States,” report takes you to the document. Thanks for leaving a respectful disagreement.
Good old America tests atmospheric nuclear bombs 300 miles above Antarctica on 8-27-1958, 8-30-1958, and 9-6-1958. In 1985 a hole in the ozone layer is discovered over Antarctica.
IMO global warming is man made. But more specifically military made. The military/scientists have poisoned our earth. They are to blame. Global warming isn’t a fraud. Blaming the citizens is the fraud.
Nuclear testing = poisoned earth = poisoned atmosphere and there is no take-backs. The damage is done. Thanks war mongers. Thanks Nazi CIA and Project Paperclip.
And if you drive your own car, do you buy gasohol to contribute to the tortilla prices in Mexico? I live on the grid; an economically efficient grid designed by markets through competition. I buy 100% gasoline which gets better fuel economy than gasohol, and my conscience is a clear as yours. My engine parts will not be eroded by ethyl alcohol and my vehicle is ten years old eaded for twenty because of gasoline. Did I mention I do not believe in using food for fuel.
Hey Jennifer Lance, I take it your computer is powered by solar, wind, or water - as well as your ISP, and for that matter the entire internet! lol (in case you missed it, since your posting - your using electricity, which in most parts of the world is generated in such a way that ‘contributes’ to co2 output)
Everything I’ve been able to read about this for many years now leads me to believe the current temp changes are nothing but normal - and mostly caused by our SUN. Thus explaining the climate changes noted by NASA on both Mars and Jupiter. I would suspect that if we were/are watching all planets, that there has been these same changes on all of them.
chrisPC88, my computer is powered by a micro hydro turbine that powers my home. You are correct thought about my ISP, etc.
Ms. Lance, I like your writing and your thoughts. Would that another planet could welcome the Republicans…
I have used DIGG to tag this article and will recommend that people visit this site regularly.
For the health of the planet, for national and international security, our own health, and our economies, it makes a great deal of sense to move away from carbon-based fuels, including gasoline and coal, toward renewable energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric power.
It is particularly interesting that Norway, an exporter of oil and natural gas, is planning to shift to wind power. They don’t have a “foreign oil problem.”
The claims often made by global warming skeptics that switching to renewable energy will damage our economy are simply untrue. We will damage our economy if we don’t make the switch: why would we want our future to be tied to the rising price of oil? The governments of Holland, Norway, Spain, Germany and the UK are making significant investments in renewable energy. Are they trying to ruin their own economies? I don’t think so, and the Euro seems much stronger than the dollar.
What we need to do is implement currently-available renewable energy technologies in the US, and in every country, while continuing to push forward with R&D on better, more efficient versions. The countries that delay will just end up buying the technology from the countries that act first. Germany and China are already building solar panel plants at double-capacity as a plan to meet the eventual, massive need in the US.
These specific suggestions are directed at correspondent “Bias” and to the general reader. The suggestions are concrete, straightforward and economically much more viable than continuing to buy oil at our current pace. They are much more environmentally viable than burning carbon fuels.
It really doesn’t even matter if there is dispute about man-made global warming or not, in the sense that these suggestions are a logical conclusion that can be reached without invoking GW. The predictions that are obviously and indisputably coming true are that Western economies are crumbling if and when they insist on remaining dependent on oil. That is happening now, and has been happening for a good while. So, let’s fix the problem while keeping the environment safe.
A few other remarks for the skeptics here:
I think is highly hypocritical of any American to clamor for more nuclear power. The truth is that we want that kind of power ONLY if the plants are built in someone else’s back yard and the waste is transported through and stored in someone else’s City, State or country. This fear is for good reason. Nuclear power plants are dangerous. They can explode. They heat up fresh water and air, which damages the environment. They provide material for terrorists and state-sponsored nuclear weapons. They generate waste that we don’t know how to store, that is highly toxic, and that lasts forever (or long enough that it might as well be forever). If people tell you that there are safe ways of storing nuclear waste, they are either misinformed or dissembling. It isn’t true.
So, let’s get solar, wind power, and other sustainable energy equipment fabrication plants and power plants built in coal country and elsewhere, to provide jobs, to provide the power for our future, to rid us of our need for foreign oil, and to protect the environment.
Much of the rest of the world is getting this right. There are problems, of course, like the environmental pollution caused by Chinese “wildcat electronics recycling efforts” that are poisoning air, land and water, and the Chinese polycrystalline silicon plants that supply conventional solar panels while dumping toxic waste in rural areas. This pollution of rural China is senseless. Western manufacturers know how to avoid it, and so do the Chinese, but China doesn’t have the national will to protect its own people or environment… kind of the way the White House wants the EPA to ignore science, to the detriment of the health and environment of the USA.
So, we must look to Europe in many cases to find the best working systems that combine economics and environmental concerns. Let’s get started!
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