Archive for Scaremongering

Since I became involved with climate change more personally a couple of years ago, the news has been getting worse and worse.  A few months ago, it occurred to me that we would eventually be asked, not to drop to 40% of our emissions, nor 20% nor even 5%, but that a completely emissions-free future would be required.  I based this on the fact that a number of areas that had previously stored carbon were now releasing it with warmer temperatures, so we couldn’t rely on the Earth to absorb any more of our carbon at all.

Today, courtesy of the Young Greens site, I was referred to an article by George Monbiot, a British journalist who has made telling the unpleasant truth about climate change his mission.  Looking at the numbers, he advocates complete decarbonization immediately.  He says a wartime economy will be necessary.

A few posts back, I mused about the sense of meeting our Kyoto targets.  I was becoming convinced that they were simply too difficult to meet.  I’m once again thinking we need to meet them anyway.  Because  Monbiot is careful and ahead of the curve.  And if he’s correct, the reduction rates that Kyoto would demand would pretty much be what we’d have to do now anyway.  And 5 years from now, whatever the pain we will have gone through, we’ll be happier when we realize the even greater pain we’ve avoided.

In yet another indication that climate scientists got it wrong and the problem is worse than anticipated, National Geographic reports on a study from yesterday’s journal Nature Geoscience, that the tropics are visibly expanding faster than anticipated.  So it’s not just near the poles that things are worse than expected.

Over the past 25 years, the tropics have expanded by as much as 300 miles (500 kilometers) north and south—evidence of climate change in action, a new study says.

This not only means that rain-drenched regions near the Equator are growing, experts say, but also that global warming may be pushing deserts poleward in places such as the American Southwest, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, South America, and the Mediterranean.

The good news, reported in this blog before, is that the Green Party is rising in the polls, even beating out the NDP nationally in popularity in some polls.

The bad news is that rising popularity and entrance into the main fray of politics means that we’re subjected to the same sort of nastiness the big boys used to reserve for each other.

The good news is that Prime Minister Harper’s policies, for a while thought to be substantive on climate change by much of the population, are now being recognized for what they are: fraudulent greenwash that actually reverses what little progress we’ve made.

The bad news is that Prime Minister Harper skewered any meaningful action on climate change at the recent Commonwealth talks in Uganda and managed to ram through a toothless policy guaranteed to allow climate change to roll on unchecked.

The good news is that on the heels of this development, one of his few allies in the commonwealth and indeed in the world, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, was turfed out in a general election where climate change was a major issue.

The bad news is that on the heels of all the bad publicity surrounding his irresponsible actions, Prime Minister Harper has attacked Elizabeth May for her searing denunciation.

The good news is that apparently Elizabeth May is the authority that Harper feels needs attacking.  We’re not such an inconsequential party after all.

The other good news is that what Elizabeth actually wrote about Mr. Harper is reasonable and sound.

Jim Harris posted this article on his blog.  It’s nothing new.  Just reminding us that the glaciers are melting, faster even than we had expected.  It focuses on the implications of glacial melt, with little reference to any other aspects of climate change.     Read more »

These videos have been removed from YouTube:
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