Global Warming News n Views

Where celebrities, surfers and wannabes mingle on Malibu’s world-famous beaches, there may be only sea walls defending fading mansions from the encroaching Pacific. In Northern California, tourists could have to drive farther north or to the cool edge of the Pacific to find what is left of the region’s signature wine country.

“We need to be attentive to the fact that changes are going to occur, whether it’s sea level rising or increased temperatures, droughts and potentially increased fires,” said Lisa Sloan, a scientist who directs the Climate Change and Impacts Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “These things are going to be happening.”

Abandoned ski lifts might dangle above snowless trails more suitable for mountain biking even during much of the winter. In the deserts, Joshua trees that once extended their tangled, shaggy arms into the sky by the thousands may have all but disappeared.

The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. While the northeast will also see some coastal flooding, its geography is such that that aside from a few projecting sandbars like Long Island and Cape Cod, the land rises fairly quickly to well above sea level. Sure, Boston, New York and Philadelphia will be threatened, but these are geographically confined areas that could lend themselves to protection by Dutch-style dikes. The West Coast too tends to rise rapidly to well above sea level in most places. Only down in Southern California towards the San Diego area is the ground closer to sea level.

Look at a map of the US.

In an interview with the Real News, retired four-star General Anthony Zinni says that global warming is a serious security threat. War over decreasing water supplies, food and land is an ever increasing danger, and the longer we ignore it, the graver the situation becomes. Perhaps coming from a military man, the warning may help the right understand the grave danger of climate change.

Whitehouse is not making a radical claim. He’s just not putting the same spin on the facts that you’ll find in most media reports about temperature trends. A recent BBC report (not by Whitehouse) has a chart showing 1998 was warmer than any year since and 6 years in that period were slightly warmer than 2007. Their spin is that the 2007 temperature shows that global warming is a confirmed trend. Um, well, on one hand 2007 didn’t return the world to cooler temperature levels from earlier decades. But on the other hand the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has gone up a lot since 1998. So why hasn’t the average global temperature for 2007 easily beat the 1998 number? (not trying to imply an answer btw - I’m just full of questions)

So maybe atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) buildup really has a warming effect. But that warming effect is getting offset by a cooling effect caused by less solar radiation.

Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.

Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn’t increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

A U.S. Senate report says that global warming has been disputed by over 400 “scientists” and claims UN IPCC and Al Gore are wrong.
Well we aught to take that Nobel Prize and present it to the true messenger of the hope, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who released a so-called “report,” pointing to hundreds of alleged independent scientists who agree with him about climate change — which is to say, they deny the reality of global warming.
“Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.

Replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (cfl)
CFLs use 60% less energy than a regular bulb. This simple switch will
save about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Install a programmable thermostat
Programmable thermostats will automatically lower the heat or air
conditioning at night and raise them again in the morning. They can
save you $100 a year on your energy bill.

Move your thermostat down 2? in winter and up 2? in summer
Almost half of the energy we use in our homes goes to heating and
cooling. You could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year
with this simple adjustment. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy has more tips for saving energy on heating and cooling.

Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner
Cleaning a dirty air filter can save 350 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.