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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (9562)	2/17/2007 11:00:48 AM
From: maceng2	Respond to of 36917

It would be nice if all such discussion on climate could be kept open and honest. thanks for the link.

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (9562)	2/18/2007 1:14:46 AM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Denying the Reality of Climate Change Written by KOB Published February 04, 2007 Many people with a serious illness have trouble accepting it; they'll deny it and ignore it for as long as possible. Global warming produces a somewhat similar reaction in some people. This continued doubt has a parallel in the 1964 Surgeon General study that established the link between smoking and cancer. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report last week is unequivocal in its warning about the impact of rising global temperatures. It is as certain about the human cause of global warming as the Surgeon General's report was about the connection between lung cancer and smoking. And, as with the Surgeon General's report, there will be numerous efforts to counter and confuse the IPCC's findings. Following release of Surgeon General's report, its critics - mostly the tobacco companies - sought to challenge its underlying science with their own industry-backed research. There was a public relations effort as well to muddy the issue with claims that, for instance, stopping smoking increases weight and creates another health risk, heart problems. Pick the lesser of two evils. Newspapers, especially during the 1970s, would often get quotes from the Tobacco Institute to “balance” a story about smoking, even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. The Tobacco Institute today exists as a court-ordered document site. Doubt-casting reports about the hazards of smoking were life rafts for people who didn't want to come to terms with the habit. It provided cover for people who refused to act responsibly. And for those who argue that smoking is somehow a “right” – an argument still championed by tobacco companies – I would say that the only reason children take up smoking is because adults continue to influence their behavior. That alone should provide strong moral reason to give up smoking. This denial of science will be true for global warming as well. Industry-backed groups will do all they can to provide cover to lawmakers and others to do less than what is needed and buy time and profit for special interests. Acceptance of the science of global warming and its conclusion that human activity is responsible for it is necessary for real action. Otherwise, the response may be little more than a series of false half-steps similar to those taken by so many smokers who couldn't or didn't want to give up their habit. blogcritics.org

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (9562)	2/18/2007 1:17:05 AM
From: average joe	Respond to of 36917

What Hath Gore Wrought? It's mid-January here in Central Texas and instead of enjoying the balmy 70 degree weather we had at Christmas, we're in a frozen hell. It's the middle of a record cold snap, with the thermometer stuck below freezing for longer than I can ever remember, and the most bizarre of phenomena, significant amounts of snow on the ground for 3 days in a row. Normally in this part of Texas the duration of snow is measured in seconds, not days. As in the snow hits the ground and disappears. Yet right now I'm looking at multiple days' accumulation of snow and ice on the ground and on the trees. Our bizarre winter wonderland may be pretty, but it's damned inconvenient. The roads are undriveable because no one in Texas knows how to drive in these conditions, so every car is like an unguided missile. Even if you could drive somewhere all the stores are closed. Our phone lines keep coming and going and our internet service is acting wanky. At least we haven't lost power yet, unlike thousands of others in the area. So far today the ice buildup has been accelerating, so we may have that to look forward to as the lines get weighted down. After three days the novelty of living in a winter wonderland is wearing rather thin, even for the kids. As I lie under the blankets in my long-johns I curse the name of Al Gore. Clearly it is he, through his arrogant blasphemy against God with his claims to know His mind and His will for the weather, which has angered the capricious diety and caused him to send us this icey punishment. As I slip and slide along the path to the garage to retrieve emergency supplies for another day I curse the name of the Socialist Republic of Austin. Clearly it is they with their so-called 'green energy' and love for Al Gore who have brought this calamitty upon us by mocking the Stormbringer who sits on high and rules the weather by his whim. As I pry the frozen dogs off the porch I curse the names of all the wide-eyed leftists in America who paid to buy a ticket to An Inconvenient Truth. I'll show you an inconvenient truth. It's called frozen dog turds right outside your back door because the dogs are too cold to make it to the grass before they do their business. As I prepare to eat my third meal of canned chili with beans I curse the climate scientists who had me half convinced that I'd be living in a tropical paradise year-round and have now been proven so laughably wrong. As I yearn for my cross-country skies which are languishing in a closet in Maine I curse the international socialists whose Kyoto treaty was designed to punish those who sat in God's good graces through their industry and productivity and clearly drew down His frozen wrath upon all of us in indiscriminate punishment. As I weep silently beneath layers of down comforters I curse my BigAss Ecotruck and I curse myself, for if I had not affronted God by rejecting his holy petroleum in favor of the devil's biodiesel, perhaps he would not have visited this vengeful icy curse upon me. All I can pray for now is that some day the ice and snow will melt and the emaciated forms of my family will be able to stand in God's sunlight in the proper 60 degree weather which is January in Texas some day in the future. Right now it looks like the distant future, as the Weather Priests in the Televideo Temples are predicting at least two more days of frozen hell. Today I will do what I can to save my family and the world. I shall set forth on the roads of certain death using my wife's blessed gashog SUV with its holy four-wheel-drive and I shall go to Borders and I shall buy all of the copies of An Inconvenient Truth and when I return home I shall stack them in a pyre and burn them all, and it will be blessed in God's sight, and he will part the heavy clouds and let the sun of redemption shine down upon us once again and free us from the tyrrany of the ice. elitistpig.com