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Politics : The Exxon Free Environmental Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (5072)	4/4/2010 11:57:15 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49085

New York ain't seen nothing yet: Future will bring flooding, hurricanes and violent weather swings By Steven Cohen Sunday, April 4th 2010, 4:00 AM When our nation's capital was buried beneath a few feet of snow last month, some of the "expert climate scientists" serving in Congress decided this was a good moment to make fun of global warming. You may recall Sen. James Inhofe, whose grandchildren constructed an igloo in front of the U.S. Capital with a sign that said: "Al Gore's New Home." Perhaps if Inhofe (R-Okla.) had leaned across the aisle for a chat with his colleagues from New York - whose constituents have been battered by insane recent swings in the weather - he would be in less of a joking mood. As a result of the mid-March storms that have plagued New York and left thousands without power, the state has requested federal disaster relief from FEMA. Since the snowstorms of December, Sen. Chuck Schumer's office estimates that New York has spent more than $75 million in response to extreme weather conditions. Endless rain and snow aren't quite so funny when it's converted into dollars and cents. Make no mistake: Weather is not climate, and we're not feeling the direct results of climate change in these recent weather phenomena. But the truth is that scientists, at least those of us here at Columbia's Earth Institute, predict more such events and with greater frequency as the planet continues to heat up. In other words, we'd better brace for a future of more weather havoc - from rising sea levels to hurricanes to new bouts of heat stroke - and not pretend like the last few months were an anomaly. Yes, it's true, a lot of climate change takes place for reasons that have nothing to do with human activity. But human activity cannot be ignored. Our cars, homes and factories warm the atmosphere, and these human impacts have increased the pace of climate change. Average world temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850. Questioning the science of climate change is like questioning the science of gravity. The cause and effect is clear. Drop a stone and it falls to the earth. Burn enough fossil fuels and you will heat up the atmosphere. Go ahead and turn on all the engines of the planet's more than 750 million motor vehicles and then flip the switch on the world's thousands of fossil fuel-based power plants. After you've done that, try to pretend that all this combustion has no impact on the atmosphere. Climate change has already begun and its impact will be felt more intensely throughout the 21st century. Especially in a coastal city like New York. nydailynews.com