George Bush On Global Warming – The Awkward Truth
George Bush On Global Warming – The Awkward Truth
I used to joke that the government issues so much information every day, it can’t help but let the truth slip out every once in a while. The Bush Administration’s recent report on global warming is a classic example. Though far from perfect, it contains some crucial but awkward truths that neither George W. Bush nor his environmentalist critics want to confront. Which may explain why the Administration has sought to bury the report, while critics have misrepresented its most ominous conclusion.
The US Climate Action Report made headlines because it contradicted so much of what the Administration has said about global warming. Not only is global warming real, according to the report, but its consequences – heat waves, water shortages, rising sea levels, loss of beaches and marshes, more frequent and violent weather – will be punishing for Americans.
The report’s biggest surprise was its admission that human activities, especially the burning of oil and other fossil fuels, are the primary cause of climate change. Of course, the rest of the world has known since 1995 that human actions have “a discernible impact” on the global climate, to quote a landmark report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But the White House has resisted this conclusion. After all, if burning fossil fuels is to blame for global warming, it makes sense to burn less of them.
To a lifelong oilman like Bush, who continues to rely on his former industry colleagues for campaign contributions as well as senior staff, such a view is nothing less than heresy. No wonder, then, that Bush and his high command have virtually repudiated the report. Although their staffs helped write it, both EPA Administrators claimed they were unaware of the report until the New York Times disclosed its existence on June 3. Bush himself dismissed it as a mere product of “the bureaucracy,” that oft-vilified boogeyman of right-wing ideology.
But he could equally have blamed his own father. The only reason U.S. Climate Action Report 2002 was compiled in the first place is that George Bush the First signed a global warming treaty at the 1992 Earth Summit that obligates the United States to periodically furnish such reports to the UN (one more reason, it seems, to despise treaties). But somebody in the Administration must have seen trouble coming, because the report could not have been released with less fanfare: It was simply posted on the EPA’s website, three unguided links in from the homepage. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d never find it.
The Administration has been hammered for issuing a report that on one hand admits that global warming threatens catastrophe but on the other maintains there is no need to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. The report squares this circle by arguing that global warming has now become inevitable, so we should focus less on preventing it than on adapting to it. To deal with water scarcity, for example, the report advocates building more dams and raising the price of water to encourage conservation. Critics see such recommendations as proof that the Administration is doing nothing about global warming. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
The worst thing about the new global warming report is that it is absolutely correct about a fundamental but often unmentioned aspect of the problem: the lag effect. Most greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere for approximately 100 years. The upshot of this undeniable chemical fact is that no matter what remedial steps are taken today, humanity is doomed to experience however much global warming the past 100 years of human activities will generate.
That does not mean we should make matters worse by continuing to burn fossil fuels, as Bush foolishly urges; our children and grandchildren deserve better than that. It does mean, however, that we as a civilization must not only shift to green energy sources immediately but also begin planning how we will adapt to a world that is bound to be a hotter, drier, more disaster-punctuated place in the twenty-first century.
Many environmentalists know it is too late to prevent global warming; the best we can do is minimize its scope. They don’t like to admit this truth, because they fear it will discourage people from making, and demanding, the personal and institutional changes needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is that risk. But a truth does not disappear simply because it is inconvenient. Besides, a green energy future would mean more, not less, economic well-being for most Americans, while also increasing our chances of avoiding the most extreme global warming scenarios. Sometimes the truth hurts. But avoiding it will hurt even more.
James Nash is a climate scientist with Greatest Planet (www.greatestplanet.org). Greatest Planet is a non-profit environmental organization specialising in carbon offset investments.
James Nash is solely responsible for the contents of this article.
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Global Warming SCAM! (An Inconvenient Truth)
www.justa11en.com I hope to inspire people to do their own research, search out their own answers, & get out of the habit of accepting what they have been told (or seen on TV) as fact. I AM AWARE THAT THERE ARE OPPOSING OPINIONS, & THEORIES ON THIS SUBJECT. THAT IS THE MOTIVATION FOR THIS VIDEO. FTR I’m a registered Independent, and I drive a Prius. Thank you for your time. RECENT admissions by IPCC tinyurl.com Another broken brick in the wall: tinyurl.com Links mentioned in the video: One of the latest, in which a judge ruled that the film contains SERIOUS SCIENTIFIC INACCURACIES, POLITICAL PROPAGANDA, and may only be shown in schools with a discalaimer. www.schoollibraryjournal.com A fan of “an inconvenient truth” Gary’s (anakin1814) excellent vid on the movie, Al Gore, & the subject in general: www.youtube.com Some other, global warming ralated, random links: www.sciencedaily.com www.stuff.co.nz www.breitbart.com www.dailymail.co.uk MY “space monkey” video: www.youtube.com MY “upsetting” video that is referenced: www.youtube.com I may add others, but I encourage YOU to seek out your own information.
Read MoreShocking Truth About Climate Change
Shocking Truth About Climate Change
Global warming, and climate change, is a subject which shows zero sign of cooling down. Here’s the lowdown on why it’s occurring, what’s inflicting it, and the way it may well modify the planet.
Is It Taking place?
Yes. Earth is currently screening numerous symbols of worldwide climate change.
• Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) all over the world since 1880, a good bit of this in recent decades, in accordance with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
• The interest rate of warming is rising. The 20th century’s last twenty years seem to have been the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for numerous millennia, according to various climate studies. And the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the previous 12 years may be among the many dozen warmest since 1850.
• The Arctic is feeling the consequences the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, in addition to eastern Russia have risen at double the global average, according to the multinational Arctic Climate Effect Assessment report compiled within 2000 and 2004.
• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the district may have the first of all wholly ice-free summer by 2040 or even earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already tormented by the sea-ice damage.
• Glaciers and mountain snows are speedily melting—for instance, Montana’s Glacier National Park presently possess only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. Inside the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and even freezes start a week later.
Is Human beings Inflicting It?
The report, based on the effort of some 2,500 scientists in additional comparing to 130 countries, concluded that humans have brought on all or most of the current planetary warming. Human-caused global warming is often known as anthropogenic climate change.
• Industrialization, deforestation, as well as pollution have intensely increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, as well as nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases that help block warmth close Earth’s surface.
• People are pouring carbon dioxide to the atmosphere much quicker than plants and oceans might absorb it.
• These gases persist in the surroundings for years, that means that even if the mentioned emissions have been eliminated now, it might not instantly finish global warming.
• Many professionals indicate that organic cycles in Earth’s orbit might change the planet’s hype to sunlight, which might clarify the current model. Earth have certainly experienced warming and cooling cycles harshly every hundred thousand years because of those orbital shifts, but such alterations have occurred along the span of several centuries. Today’s alterations have taken place over the past hundred years or fewer.
What’s Going to Happen?
A follow-up describe warned that global warming could lead on to large-scale food and water shortages and still have catastrophic effects on nature.
• Sea level could mount within 7 and 23 inches (18 to 59 centimeters) by means of century’s end. Rises of just four inches (10 centimeters) might flood a number of South Seas islands and swamp big parts of Southeast Asia.
• Glaciers around the world could melt, inflicting sea levels to rise while creating water shortages in areas depending on runoff for clean water.
• Powerful hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, as well as other natural disasters may turn out to be conventional in many parts of the world. The expansion of deserts may also cause food shortages in lots of areas.
• More than 1 000 000 species face extinction from disappearing territory, changing ecosystems, and acidifying oceans
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Global Warming: MEAT THE TRUTH (full length • widescreen • 4 subtitle languages)
More informations how to stop global warming: www.MeatTheTruth.com or http (NOTE for the YouTube-Team: we have uploaded this movie with the permission of the Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation) How to stop global warming? This extraordinary movie made by the Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation from Holland shows us the whole and bitter truth about the influence of the meat industry on our climate and on the devastation of our environment, water and air.
Read MoreThe Truth About Recycling | ZapRoot
Discover what really happens with your recyclables. Its time for another round of That’s Just Weird. ZapRoot zaproot.com Community snipurl.com Store snipurl.com Newsletter snipurl.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Recyclebank www.recyclebank.com…
The process to recycle milk jugs & other plastics into a durable plastic wood fencing product. Video courtesy of WNEP’s Home & Backyard Show.
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