A new study in the journal Science suggests that humanity is on the very of causing “a major extinction event” in our oceans while another study has found that 2014 was the hottest year in 135 years of record keeping. In the meantime, Pope Francis has again raised climate change and called environmental destruction a “sin” and affront to God.
Pope Francis has made it clear that in his view man-caused climate change is real and threatening humanity. In the Philippines, he called out to youth to rally behind environmental protection: “This is not only because this country, more than many others, is likely to be seriously affected by climate change. You are called to care for creation, not only as responsible citizens, but also as followers of Christ!”
His view is getting new support this month. In the ocean study by Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Malin L. Pinsky, a marine biologist at Rutgers University and their colleagues, the results show an accelerating level of damage but also found that it was possible to reverse this course.
They combines data from a wide range of sources from fossil records to fish catch rate to seabed mining. They found overwhelming evidence of over harvesting as well as habitat loss and coral reef destruction. While fishing and mining were found to be major threats, it was climate change was the major culprit in the long run. The 40 percent reduction in coral reefs were viewed as tied to climate change.
In the meantime, the data out of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA is not encouraging. The data show that 2014 was they hottest year in 135 years of record-keeping. This follows similar findings by the Japanese and an independent group out of University of California Berkeley.
The respected NOAA scientists reported 2014 averaged 58.24 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.24 degrees above the 20th-century average. (NASA only differs slightly in its finding of 58.42 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 1.22 degrees above their average).
NOAA also found that last month was the hottest December on record and that six months last year set marks for heat. Nine of the 10 hottest years in NOAA global records have occurred since 2000. According to University of South Carolina statistician John Grego, the odds of this happening at random are about 650 million to 1.
leejcaroll,
Ack! I missed “I am saddened to decide to leave this blog but it has turned into something it once was not, not to this degree.”
Please don’t do that! I have enjoyed our conversations immensely and would like them to continue. I don’t want anything to become an echo chamber.
Heck, I got on here to post a link about the soil microbiome to see what you thought of it:
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41078/title/Incorporating-Soil-Microbes-in-Climate-Change-Models/
Could our agricultural and yardwork practices be affecting the climate to a greater degree than factory/car emissions?
What has Europe done about climate change that was painless? There are so many absolutes given here without what and how.
I listened to Obama, for the upteempth time that climate change is our biggest and that all of us don’t take it seriously! What does he want us to do? Beyond money, of course.
I grew up in Long Beach, CA and one Christmas in the ’50’s it was 98 degrees. This was shortly before we were told Washington and Oregon were going to be glaciers, long before now.
Can someone here who is dedicated to addressing climate change tell me why we should believe now? You can’t just discard all the freezing absolutes of the ’70’s, which was just as absolute as warming.
Droughts are not caused as much by heat as by the atmosphere not dumping water there. Mother Natures empties her clouds where She pleases. We’ve spent a great deal of time and money in these arguments. How about putting the time and money to work building a system for moving water around. Our roads are torn up once a year, so do it again for water piping to make drought an old, fixed problem.
Work smarter. Put people to work building a water system around the country. LA is still using the Mulhulland system from the ’40’s(?). Take all the money from climate change and put it into a water system and water purification systems to desalinate ocean water. We’re told oceans are rising. Let’s desalinate the water and use it on land.
There is nothing this country can’t do if we use our Can-do attitude instead of the liberal throw money at it as a solution,which it has never has been.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/21/mit-climate-scientist-global-warming-believers-a-cult/
Interesting link, Gary.
Some quotes from your link:
Lindzen said he was fortunate to have gained tenure just as the “climate change” movement was beginning, because now non-believers are often ostracized in academia. In his career he has watched the hysteria of the 1970’s over “global cooling” morph into “global warming.”
…
As for CO2, Lindzen said that until recently, periods of greater warmth were referred to as “climate optimum.” Optimum is derived from a Latin word meaning “best.” “Nobody ever questioned that those were the good periods. All of a sudden you were able to inculcate people with the notion that you have to be afraid of warmth.”
The warmists’ ultimate solution is to reduce the standard of living for most of mankind. That proposition is being resisted most vigorously by nations with developing economies such as China and India, both of which have refused to sign on to any restrictive, Obama-backed climate treaties. Lindzen understands their reluctance. “Anything you do to impoverish people, and certainly all the planned policies will impoverish people, is actually costing lives. But the environmental movement has never cared about that.”
NASA scientists: We said 2014 was the warmest but we’re only 38% sure
The claim made headlines around the world, but yesterday it emerged that GISS’s analysis is subject to a margin of error. NASA admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all.
Read the full story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2915061/Nasa-climate-scientists-said-2014-warmest-year-record-38-sure-right.html
19 January 2015
Leejcaroll
I was on Welfare in 1978 for 4 months and then I got another job and worked 2 and stayed up around the clock with my three children. I didn’t make any assumptions.
1 – I am not interested in Lame Stream Media Manipulation of Political Agenda that is ongoing.
2 – I have less than no respect for TV and Newspaper Journalists that award Pinocchio awards and giggle like schoolchildren because they can’t delve deeply into a situation and then meditate on the facts because they have an agenda to create that is a hypocrisy at best.
3 -This goes for both Democrats and Republicans.
Furthermore ——————- This is a quote of what I said to you
“In other words, unless you have ever been involved in applying for and receiving welfare, you can’t know how burdensome it is to receive the funds and be a productive member of society.”
Now, if you want to take that personally, fine. Go ahead because it certainly was not framed as an insult. I was explaining the problem.
Did you even look at my solution to the people that are unable to train because of a lack of ability? They could work and clean up the environment. It would give them a feeling of self worth which is very important.
happypappies, so far I am with you 100% regarding your comments about the media and pinocchio awards, as well as your perspective about welfare. You have spoken as a true student from the school of hard knocks.
david2575
Thank you
I was following your comments to Jill and Issac on Global Warming on the Telsa being charged “had to stay unexpectedly overnight while the car was charging.”
.
Well, I just went back to Issac’s rich compost dung heap and I was going to cut and paste the Prius bs but I chose not to as most people have owned one and are aware of the problems with the battery. I have a friend who has taken hers in several times because they will not replace it. A friend of “none” has 250 thousand miles on it? hmmm.
It isn’t on this thread but I was following with interest your comments on the Stock market and if my Husband was not in the Veterans Home, I would look to some things you suggested and Enbridge because that pipeline will go in after the Obama is gone.
Issac said “The US simply is too dysfunctional a society to coordinate the way the 21st Century will demand. Oligarchs, two party system, ignorant voters, and too many with their heads in the sand.”
This fairy tale is perpetuated by the Liberals regarding stocks, bonds and how to make money in a two dimensional way. That is not to say there is not corruption in the system. There always has been however, you can make money. The Liberals are blindsided by this propaganda that you can’t make any money so they can tax tax tax the rich —- those over 150 thousand a year and for some reason they think a Corporation pays no taxes whatsoever. It is absurd. What do they think Corporate tax is?
Well, this article says we are losing 60,000 of them a year because of our 35% Corporate tax that we don’t have. Never mind the 24 percent o capital gains that Obama wants to go up to 28 percent because he is out of his mind. Well, something’s got to pay for TANF I guess.
Well, we all know this is the General Welfare Clause in the Constitution they are always telling us about, right? So, lets pass out some more fiat dollars for the disenfranchised and out of work and poor that don’t want to work any more and their babies and food stamps too and how about some of those Prius’s and FHA loans because everyone knows they will pay them off with that government money. It all worked so well when Reagan deregulated the S & L companies and then everything was further deregulated with FANNIE MAE and FREDDIE MAC with ACORN By President Clinton with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1995. these mortgagees were reserved for the poorer neighborhoods where they pressured the mortgage companies to lend to those who could not afford it;
When Issac says things like this it just opens the door for me to say things back in order to correct him. It scares me when we elect someone like Obama – A community organizer from the Daley Machine in Chicago – yes – I am gong to say that because he gave an endorsement to Richard Daley Jr for his 6th run in Chicago as Mayor in spite of the corruption which stank of Nepotism but oh well. Here is some of those things I was going to say with that opened door.
Regarding the Aunts and Uncles of the housing bubble, this is how community organizers put the heat on the mortgage companies. For instance, if Chase made 100 mortgages in a poor Chicago district, and Countrywide 150, the government would likely give Chase a lower CRA rating, and community organizers could pressure politicians to make it more difficult for Chase to get licensed to do full ranges of business in new areas of the country. Low CRA ratings could also disadvantage Chase with regard to government lending programs and make it more difficult for Chase to participate in mergers and acquisitions.
upthread someone else (I think it wasn;t you) also commented about gutting the welfare to work by Obama and you talk abuot the “disenfranchised and out of work and poor that don’t want to work any more and their babies and food stamps too” This is the truth, second tiume posting the facts as opposed to the right’s take on food stamps and welfare to work (and access to food stamps)
” Gov. Paul LePage (R) decided last year to prematurely reinstate tougher eligibility rules requiring food stamps recipients to work. The state agency that maintains SNAP in Maine launched the change in October, and reports that 6,500 of the state’s roughly 215,000 SNAP beneficiaries had been booted from the program as of the end of 2014, WGME’s investigation found.
A Maine official portrayed the decision as “complying with federal requirements” in an interview with the station, but the federal government offered to waive those requirements for Maine and 36 other states back in May. In those 37 states, economic conditions are so bad that the federal government invited state officials to suspend the work requirement that usually applies to able-bodied adults without dependents who want SNAP benefits. When the economy is healthy and jobs are plentiful, a person with no disability and no one to look after must demonstrate that they are working or in job training at least 20 hours a week in order to get food stamps for more than 90 days in any three-year period. If economic conditions are dire, though, federal officials allow state administrators to waive the work rules for SNAP.
Three of Maine’s 16 counties, home to about 100,000 of its 1.3 million residents, are designated “labor surplus areas” by federal labor market monitors. That means there is a serious imbalance between the number of people willing to work and the number of jobs available — an imbalance that stripping away food assistance will do nothing to correct.
You may not like the source http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/01/21/3613618/lepage-snap-waivers/ but the facts about the law are the facts about the law.
I am so tired of this lumping all liberals in one packet and the repetition of Fox and right wing lies and distortions. It used to be that I had to go to Mike Huckabee’s page on FB to read it but now it is this blog. All lioberals are “cultists” and other names.
When I started with this blog there was more thoughtful dialogue and actual listening to one another. It has turned into a right wing/left wing diatribe, more from the right, go read your comments Nick, Paul, Pogo et al where you call those who disagree with ou names and disparage rather then give actual cites, facts, etc.
I am saddened to decide to leave this blog but it has turned into something it once was not, not to this degree.
I learn a lot from here, the prof posts stories I don’t see posted elsewhere and when the comments are intelligent and thought out, as opposed to second grade behavior,it is well worth the read but at this point it is more often comments that are degrading to others and thought-less rather then thoughtful so another liberal voice is gone. It will become what it appears to be descending to: a voice for the right wing who hates the president and his policies and never allows for anything good from the liberal side happening or being done, even to the point of disparaging those from the liberal side who have said there are things with which I disagree/am disappointed with that the pres has done and who say so when the issues arise. Instead those voices are ignored and “cultists” Obama worshippers etc comes out.
Bye.
leejcaroll
All I said was I thought these people that were not working and were receiving money would feel good about themselves cleaning up after the environment. And I did not use the gutting term – you did – and I did not use all the other verbose language here. I don’t even know you. I tried to be nice. You don’t even want to enter into the spirit of a debate here. You just want to be right but that is okay.
Don’t quit on my account. I am not important enough to the blog as I am sure you are.
As for vehicles it is the same as the solar.
I view vehicles as transportation not status.
I drive a Subaru with 414,000 miles. My Olds gave up the ghost at 325,000. You can believe that I maintain my cars well.
So I am faced with the same problem as I discussed previously. I would very much like to have a fully electric vehicle such as a Nissan Leaf. But at $33,000 out the door price it’s too much to pay when I could buy a high mileage gas car for $18K or, even more economically, continue using the Subaru until it dies.
Also, I don’t buy new cars so even when the price comes down to a cheaper rate I have to wait three or four more years until the used cars are what I want to pay.
Now that gas prices are lowering, I am reading that SUV sales are increasing. So until either gas vehicles are no longer available either due to unavailability or the cost of gas being very high we are going to see people staying with gasoline for the foreseeable future.
@ Darren Smith When you write your first best seller about what is going on in our beleagered once Noble Nation and far we have fallen. Please keep me in mind for a signed copy 😉
I have reservations about any subsidy offered to the consumer to buy a certain product. Often, when the incentive is offered the supplier/manufacturer just factors that into the sale price so that they effectively take much of the subsidy for themselves.
A case in point is when I researched purchasing solar power for my house. The total subsidies for this, if I remember correctly, was about $16,000 for both federal and state. The solar contractor wanted $33,000 for the full installation plus material. They marketed the a break even point in eight years based upon my energy use and all the factors including the tax credit subsidy and the savings in electricity. However capital outlay required for this amounted to the full price of the installation paid up front and the tax rebate for my situation would have to be carried out over several years.
I did some further research and discovered I could source the solar panels and contract the electrician and labor for between $14,000 and $15,000. Additionally, I read that two major solar panel manufacturers are in the next two or three years going to put large factories online and the cost per KwH will drop by up to half.
So for the moment it is not a viable option. Trust me, I want to go to solar and clean energy for reasons more than just economic but when financial barriers are put into place what choice do I have otherwise?
Darren Smith wrote: “So for the moment it is not a viable option. Trust me, I want to go to solar and clean energy for reasons more than just economic but when economic barriers are put into place what choice do I have otherwise?”
Very well said, Darren.
Prius are a serious safety hazard when they are in electric mode. So much of accident avoidance is from hearing. With young people w/ ear buds, and quiet Prius, there are more and more accidents in parking lots and alleys. I’m in Mission Beach for the winter. There are a series of alleys integral to getting around. I don’t use ear buds. But, there are MANY Prius out here and just yesterday I was startled by a Prius behind me as I walked in an alley. Just didn’t hear it. I am an introvert and am very sensitive to noise. I love quiet. But a silent moving vehicle is a safety problem.
From the beginning of 1800 to present the population has grown from 1 billion to 7 billion and with all the advancements in technology (production of steel, aluminum, electricity to name a few) energy requirements skyrocket.
Even back then we were aware of ice melt and ocean rise. That was predicated upon a cycle in Earth’s climatology. In hindsight, it maybe, but exacerbated by the exponential industrial growth.
I am of the opinion that we look for ways to ameliorate what is happening and plan for the long term. In Seattle we have one huge slumbering volcano that will wipe out the infrastructure with its lahar cutting right through everything just south of Seattle. Can’t stop it and it will happen. All bets are on “not in my lifetime.” Life goes on. But the cities’ sea walls are getting lots of attention. Pick the battles. Another effort —-cleaning up the car and industrial exhaust has been a huge success. Have to be careful with the industrial issue. I could mention Pittsburgh but others may point out that the cleaner air is because over 7 miles of steel plants no longer exist. Wasn’t EPA tho. They imploded economically. Japan lost in WWII but won big steel thanks to our B-29 urban and industrial clean-out efforts. No management or union fights about modernization.
I digress. Acknowledge the changes, take steps that can build on each other, recognize the wins and losses.adjust.
Remember though there is an asteroid out there with our name on it. It’s like Mt Ranier….it’s gonna happen, just not sure when and we can’t stop it. Work with what we can.
Go Seahawks