Friday, April 06, 2007

Amidst Reports of new U.S. Dust Bowl and rapidly warming Lake Superior, Bush needs more time to think?

Amidst reports of new U.S. dust bowl, a rapidly warming Lake Superior, Green peace finds new report Apocalyptic while Bush downplays it and needs more studies and time!
As the world scientists and Governments wrestle with the new report on global warming that they all agree is happening and natural or not is being increased by man and something must be done about it, I can't believe it is all boiling down to semantics only so Governments can continue to destroy the environment.
An authoritative international global warming conference, way past the deadline for finishing its report, lapsed into an unprecedented showdown between scientists and diplomats over authors' concerns that governments were watering down their warnings. Last-minute negotiations over language continued behind closed doors Friday, less than one hour before a scheduled release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in Brussels.
A dispute between the scientific authors and the diplomatic editors of the report erupted over the sixth paragraph in the 21-page summary that sets out how much confidence the scientists have in their findings about the effects global warming is already having.
The sentence originally said scientists had "very high confidence" -- which means more than 90 percent chance of accuracy -- in the statement that many natural systems around the globe "are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases."
After days of intensive negotiations over this section, delegates from China and Saudi Arabia on Friday insisted that the confidence level be reduced to "high" -- which means more than 80 percent accuracy. http://www.cnn.com/...
While the world is wrestling over the semantics of whether or not they are very highly confident or only highly confident Richard Seager of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory is even more confident that we will soon be in trouble in the Southwest. Changing climate will mean increasing drought in the southwestern United States, where water already is in short supply, according to a new study.
"The bottom line message for the average person and also for the states and federal government is that they'd better start planning for a southwest region in which the water resources are increasingly stretched," said Richard Seager of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. Seager is lead author of the study published online Thursday by the journal Science.
The consensus of the 19 computer models of the climate, using data dating back to 1860 and projecting into the future was that climate in the southwestern United States and parts of northern Mexico began a transition to drier conditions late in the 20th century and is continuing the trend in this century, as climate change alters the movement of storms and moisture in the atmosphere. http://www.cnn.com/...
Almost 150 years of Data and Bush needs more time? If threats of a drought and a return to a dust bowl because of rising temperatures aren't enough think about this!
Lake Superior has been warming even faster than the climate around it since the late 1970s because of reduced ice cover, according to a study by professors at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Summer surface temperatures on the famously cold lake have increased about 4.5 degrees since 1979, compared with about a 2.7-degree increase in the region's annual average air temperature, the researchers found. The lake's "summer season" is now beginning about two weeks earlier than it did 27 years ago.
"It's a remarkably rapid rate of change," Jay Austin, an assistant professor with the university's Large Lakes Observatory and Department of Physics, told the Star Tribune newspaper. Austin co-authored the study with geology professor Steve Colman.
The study is based on data collected by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration buoys on the lake and on 102 years' worth of daily temperature readings at a hydroelectric plant near Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. http://www.cnn.com/...
Another 102 years worth of data gathering and that is not enough for Bush? Over 250 years of combined information in the United States alone and Bush needs more studies and time. We know what he is waiting for but how can he continue to get away with this lunacy? Not only with climate change but in everything he does? When is he going to be held accountable?
Al Gore has been a great advocate for Global warming and the environment. However, he too is being too generous as to how much time we have to act. If we acted instantly I do not believe we can turn things around and we are only preparing to make it even worse with another threatening war before us.

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
www.anaveragepatriot.com

2 comments:

LittleBill said...

A really good post, Jim!

jmsjoin said...

Hi little bill
Thanks, you just made me remember to go check you out. Now I am on my way!