Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Big Lie: Global Warming And Climate Change, cont'd.

Man-Caused Global Warming And Climate Change: A Monstrous Lie

It is well known and documented that Alpine Glaciers (those found in mountainous areas) have advanced and retreated many times in recordable history.  This is history witnessed and written of by man during the past approximate 5,000 years.  There is unmistakable and unarguable evidence these glaciers have advanced and retreated many times since the end of the last Ice Age, when Continental Ice Sheets covered much of the Polar Regions and the Northern Hemisphere.  Something caused this glacial retreat, or melting, and it wasn't man-caused.  At least this melting occurred before he burning of massive amounts of fossil fuels and the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2). 

These were also at least as rapid climate changes as we see in the world today.  So what is unique about current events?  Why are we in such a frenzy to "stop climate change"?  It is nothing unusual, unless we're being scared and panicked by fear?  Is it so we will happily, or a least willingly, pay more taxes, carbon taxes or otherwise, to solve this imaginary warming problem?  We should be worried, but not about global warming.
Peter


Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentine Patagonia

Scientist Reveals Inconvenient Truth to Alarmists

Tuesday, 17 Jun 2014 07:59 AM
By Larry Bell
Dr. Christian Schlüchter’s discovery of 4,000-year-old chunks of wood at the leading edge of a Swiss glacier was clearly not cheered by many members of the global warming doom-and-gloom science orthodoxy.
 
This finding indicated that the Alps were pretty nearly glacier-free at that time, disproving accepted theories that they only began retreating after the end of the little ice age in the mid-19th century. As he concluded, the region had once been much warmer than today, with “a wild landscape and wide flowing river.”
 
Dr. Schlüchter’s report might have been more conveniently dismissed by the entrenched global warming establishment were it not for his distinguished reputation as a giant in the field of geology and paleoclimatology who has authored/coauthored more than 250 papers and is a professor emeritus at the University of Bern in Switzerland.
 
Then he made himself even more unpopular thanks to a recent interview titled “Our Society is Fundamentally Dishonest” which appeared in the Swiss publication Der Bund where he criticized the U.N.-dominated institutional climate science hierarchy for extreme tunnel vision and political contamination.
 
Following the ancient forest evidence discovery Schlüchter became a target of scorn. As he observes in the interview, “I wasn’t supposed to find that chunk of wood because I didn’t belong to the close-knit circle of Holocene and climate researchers. My findings thus caught many experts off guard: Now an ‘amateur’ had found something that the [more recent time-focused] Holocene and climate experts should have found.”
 
Other evidence exists that there is really nothing new about dramatic glacier advances and retreats. In fact the Alps were nearly glacier-free again about 2,000 years ago. Schlüchter points out that “the forest line was much higher than it is today; there were hardly any glaciers. Nowhere in the detailed travel accounts from Roman times are glaciers mentioned.”
 
Schlüchter criticizes his critics for focusing on a time period which is “indeed too short.” His studies and analyses of a Rhone glacier area reveal that “the rock surface had [previously] been ice-free 5,800 of the last 10,000 years."
 
 
Such changes can occur very rapidly. His research team was stunned to find trunks of huge trees near the edge of Mont Miné Glacier which had all died in just a single year. They determined that time to be 8,200 years ago based upon oxygen isotopes in the Greenland ice which showed marked cooling.
Casting serious doubt upon alarmist U.N.-IPCC projections that the Alps will be nearly glacier-free by 2100, Schlüchter poses several challenging questions: “Why did the glaciers retreat in the middle of the 19th century, although the large CO2 increase in the atmosphere came later? Why did the Earth 'tip' in such a short time into a warming phase? Why did glaciers again advance in the 1880s, 1920s, and 1980s? . . . Sooner or later climate science will have to answer the question why the retreat of the glacier at the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850 was so rapid.”
 
Although we witness ongoing IPCC attempts to blame such developments upon evil fossil-fueled CO2 emissions, that notion fails to answer these questions. Instead, Schlüchter believes that the sun is the principal long-term driver of climate change, with tectonics and volcanoes acting as significant contributors.
 
Regarding IPCC integrity with strong suspicion, Schlüchter recounts a meeting in England that he was “accidentally” invited to which was led by “someone of the East Anglia Climate Center who had come under fire in the wake of the Climategate e-mails.”
 
As he describes it: “The leader of the meeting spoke like some kind of Father. He was seated at a table in front of those gathered and he took messages. He commented on them either benevolently or dismissively.”
 
Schlüchter’s view of the proceeding took a final nosedive towards the end of the discussion. As he noted: “Lastly it was about tips on research funding proposals and where to submit them best. For me it was impressive to see how the leader of the meeting collected and selected information.”
As a number of other prominent climate scientists I know will attest, there’s one broadly recognized universal tip for those seeking government funding. All proposals with any real prospects for success should somehow link climate change with human activities rather than to natural causes. Even better, those human influences should intone dangerous consequences.
 
Schlüchter warns that the reputation of science is becoming more and more damaged as politics and money gain influence. He concludes, “For me it also gets down to the credibility of science . . . Today many natural scientists are helping hands of politicians, and are no longer scientists who occupy themselves with new knowledge and data. And that worries me.”
 
Yes. That should worry everyone.
 
Larry Bell is a professor and endowed professor at the University of Houston, where he directs the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and heads the graduate program in space architecture. He is author of “Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax,” and his professional aerospace work has been featured on the History Channel and the Discovery Channel-Canada.
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  • Wednesday, February 19, 2014

    Exposing The Hoax That Is Man-caused Global Warming

    I've been away a long time.  Maybe I  will continue this blog.  The following article is very good. 
    Peter
    Source:


    Santa Clause, Easter Bunnies, And Catastrophic Global Warming

    This article was written by Richard Rothschild and originally published at Freedom Outpost
    I never deny climate change. The climate has been changing since the beginning of time.  I simply reject hysteria and theories that suggest catastrophic anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 based climate change is occurring.
    There’s a reason the left has changed vernacular; Global Warming is now Climate Change, and Sea Level Rise is now Storm Surge.   Scientists have not been able to demonstrate a correlation with their radical CO2 warming theories, so they now repackage their movement with even vaguer wording.
    global warming hype
    Furthermore, even in theory, if you assumed CO2 was the substantive driver of climate,  CO2 abatement schemes large enough to be effective would be unaffordable;  and those schemes small enough to be affordable would be ineffective. For example:  To reduce the earth’s temperature one degree with CO2 abatement would require an investment equivalent to 130 years GDP of the entire planet, or more than $4,000,000,000,000,000 (4 quadrillion dollars).  It ain’t happening.
    • The question is not whether climate is changing… it has been changing for eons. The proper questions are:
    • Is change exceeding usual cyclical variations?
    • If so, is the variance substantial?
    • Do the negative impacts outweigh the positive impacts?
    • If so, are any changes likely to be catastrophic?
    • If so, what are the true drivers (causes)?
    • Can change be conclusively correlated with any human activities?
    • How large of a component do human activities play?
    • If manmade, can we reasonably abate them?
    • What is the most appropriate coping mechanism? General abatement or focused adaptation?
    I recommend you read the U.S. Senate Minority Report containing statements from 700 scientists rebutting Climate Change.  Several of the scientists were previously involved with the UN-IPCC, and to put it bluntly, they say it just ain’t so, and the 52 scientists on the IPCC are wrong.
    Charts I have seen of worldwide cyclonic energy, worldwide temperatures, etc. do not corroborate CO2 theories. Claims of increased damage from hurricanes and storms are a function of increased development and infrastructure in vulnerable areas… NOT more violent storms.
    Claims in Maryland of rising sea level are actually a function of settlement of land masses.  Furthermore, usual and customary sea level rise elsewhere of 3mm a year (ten inches per century) hardly qualifies as catastrophic.   Besides, if Maryland’s Governor O’Malley and his Department of Planning REALLY believed this bunk, they wouldn’t be constructing more subways underground.
    Maryland will spend $17 Billion attempting to reduce Greenhouse Gases over the next decade. You’ll be pleased to know that this effort, if successful, will reduce the temperature of Maryland by 1/20,000 of one degree. Unfortunately, we have no way of measuring anything this small. So even if the program is a success, we’ll have no way of knowing it.
    I attended a convention where they asked a scientist from the University of Colorado who believes in manmade CO2 based global warming, “What would need to happen to get you to admit you were wrong?”
    His answer, “The current cooling trend would have to continue for another 10 to 20 years.”
    Bladabling.
    The “Climateers” argue that most scientific papers support their theories. Of course, nearly 100% of all government research grants are commissioned with a charge to demonstrate global warming exists. Clearly, it should be no surprise when universities and non-profits eager for follow-on grants give the government exactly the so-called science it requests.  After all… if they produce conclusions counter to what the government wants, they get no more money.
    People ask, why do you call them “Climateers?” Simply because they are the only crisis centric group that becomes genuinely disappointed when evidence is produced that demonstrates their fears may be unfounded. Amusing.
    Environmental exaggeration provides the rubric government needs to scare children, scare adults, and justify unacceptable encroachments on our constitutional freedoms.
    Of course the smoking gun that says it all was the recent statement by the former undersecretary of the Marxist UN-IPCC and Ottmar Edenhofer who made the  statement, “… that we redistribute the world’s wealth by climate policy.”
    Ouch!!!

    I agree with the 700 scientist(s) in the Senate Report who conclude that claims of CO2-based catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is the biggest fraud ever perpetuated on the human race.
    We need our teachers to take the lead, and start teaching our children both sides of this debate and stop indoctrinating them with one-sided government paid-for propaganda.

    And finally, as Mark Twain once said, “It is easier to fool a man than to convince him that he’s been fooled.”

    Wednesday, July 17, 2013

    Reuters Changing Their Propaganda Team On Global Warming

    Funny thing, I just commented (in the previous article) on a Reuters article about global warming/climate change politics, and now I see this article about how Reuters has shaken up their "reporting" staff  on global warming.  Do you think maybe the FBI, NSA, EPA, and IRS have been spying on them and asking (coercing) them into a more conventional party line on the subject of global warming and climate change?
    Peter

    Posted: 16 Jul 2013 01:12 PM PDT
    reutersWinds of change are blowing through Reuters’ environmental coverage. One of its three regional environment correspondents “is no longer with the company” and the other two have been ordered to switch focus, people inside the agency say.
     
    A perceptible shift in Reuters’ approach to the global climate change story has attracted international attention. Scientists and climatologists as well as non-governmental and international environment bodies have detected a move from the agency’s straight coverage towards scepticism on the view held by a vast majority of scientists that climate change is the result of human pollution of the atmosphere and environment. They see generally fewer stories on the issue. Some say they have been taken aback by Reuters’ new direction and are concerned that this could contribute to a change in government and public perceptions of climate change.

    Politicians And Liberal Policy Makers Take Note: Buying Into The Bad Carbon Myth Is Damaging To Your Career


    Obama is behind the curve again.  His advisers (or his teleprompter) are putting out totally flawed ideas that other governments around the world are recognizing as abysmal failures.  Here, now, I am referring to the idea of carbon taxes, carbon offsets, or any other schemes to raise tax revenues on the backs of higher energy prices for consumers.
     
    Politicians around the world who bought into the idea of fossil fuel-burning, carbon dioxide causing global warming and climate change are realizing what a mistake they have made.  It is costing not only the public in terms of lost jobs, higher energy costs, and a lowered standard of living, but now as near bankruptcy looms, politicians are the ones feeling  the heat.  It will only get warmer in the frying pan these self-serving clowns (politicians) find themselves in.  The following article describes the problems liberal politicians in Australia are encountering because they have bought into the climate fear-mongering.  I have no sympathy.  They should, and do know better.  They have allowed the greed of carbon taxes overwhelm the obvious.  Man's activities are not causing catastrophic climate change, and to try and alter the global climate is political folly, or even suicide.  Eventually, the truth prevails.
    Peter

    Australia's carbon mess a warning to the world: Clyde Russell

         
     
    The evil Mr. Carbon scaring the children.
     
     Source:
    Wed Jul 17, 2013 1:47am EDT
    --Clyde Russell is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own.--
    By Clyde Russell
    LAUNCESTON, Australia, July 17 (Reuters) - Any government thinking of introducing policies to limit carbon emissions should look at Australia for an example of how not to do it.
    Australia's efforts to combat climate change have been poison to politicians from all sides of the debate, contributing so far to the demise of two prime ministers and an opposition leader, and there may be more to come.

    The latest twist has seen Prime Minister Kevin Rudd decide to switch from a straight tax on carbon emissions to a floating emissions trading scheme (ETS) a year earlier than planned.

    This has nothing to do with improving the workings of the scheme or limiting carbon emissions and everything to do with trying to win back voters angered by rising electricity prices and industries that have seen their international competitiveness eroded by the tax.

    The theory is that power and other prices will decline as the cost of carbon permits is expected to be around A$6 per tonne - the level at which European permits are currently priced - compared to the tax of A$25.40 ($23.09) per tonne that had been planned from July 2014.

    Assuming European carbon permits don't rise in price, which is a fairly big call given efforts to reduce the supply of permits, Rudd's changes will save the average Australian household A$4 a week in electricity costs.

    Whether this is enough to assuage public anger and help Rudd's Labor Party win re-election will become clear in the coming months as he has to call a federal election by end-November.
    But Rudd's efforts to remove the carbon tax as an election issue only serve to underline how badly the whole thing has been handled.

    When Rudd was first elected prime minister in 2007 he called climate change the "greatest moral, social and economic challenge of our time", signed Australia up to the Kyoto Protocol and proceeded to design an ETS.

    This even enjoyed rare bi-partisan support from the then leader of the Liberal opposition Malcolm Turnbull.

    However, it was Turnbull's support for the ETS that helped undo his leadership and he was ousted by his colleagues in December 2009, being replaced by the more conservative Tony Abbott, who withdrew his party's support for Rudd's plans.

    Rudd's own popularity fell as he struggled to gain public support for his carbon scheme and a controversial new mining tax, leading to his ouster in a party coup in June 2010.
    His replacement as prime minister, Julia Gillard, scrapped the planned ETS, making a promise that any government she led wouldn't introduce a carbon tax.

    This commitment came back to haunt her after the August 2010 election, in which she managed to hang on to power by cutting a deal with Australian Greens and two conservative independent lawmakers to form a minority government.

    Part of her agreement with the Greens was the introduction of a carbon tax with a fixed price per tonne of emissions up until July 2015, at which point it would change to a floating, traded price.
    The broken promise was seized upon at every opportunity by the Liberal opposition and conservative media commentators, and in turn contributed to Gillard's poor performance in opinion polls.
    When these polls showed her Labor Party heading for a massive defeat in an election she scheduled for September, her colleagues once again ousted a prime minister, bringing back Rudd in a party room vote last month.

    Rudd's popularity with the public has seen the Labor Party inch closer to the Liberals in opinion polls, putting pressure on Abbott, who courted ridicule as a climate sceptic earlier this week by describing the ETS as a "so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance".
    However, the Liberals are still ahead in opinion polls and if they win the upcoming election, Abbott has promised to scrap the carbon tax and the move to an ETS, replacing it with what he terms "direct action" on climate change.

    But even if his party does win the election, it may not control both houses of parliament, and the lack of a majority in the upper house Senate may cruel Abbott's plans, as legislation has to clear both chambers.

    It's little wonder that businesses and the public want some kind of resolution to the issue, but the upcoming vote may not deliver this, at least not immediately.
    Part of the problem with Gillard's carbon tax is that it was more of a welfare programme than a plan to reduce emissions.

    The tax raised was used to fund a raft of welfare measures to compensate for the higher prices caused by the tax.
    The plans of both Rudd and Abbott would see the revenue from the tax fall dramatically or disappear altogether, but the welfare payments would remain, leaving the nation's budget with the worst possible outcome.
    Rudd said his plan to move earlier to an ETS would cost the budget some A$4 billion, which would be recouped through spending cuts and tightening rules around company-funded vehicles for employees.

    Abbott has so far only promised to end a small portion of welfare payments and seek spending cuts across the government.
    Absent from both plans is much talk about climate change and carbon emissions.
    Australia is the world's 15th-largest polluter and the highest per capita in the developed world, largely as a result of 80 percent of power being coal-fired and the prevalence of carbon-intensive industries such as mining and liquefied natural gas plants.

    The existing carbon tax may actually be able to claim some credit for reducing emissions, with Australia's overall greenhouse gas emissions dropping 0.2 percent in 2012 from the prior year, and those from electricity generation by 4.7 percent.
    But this success, while modest, is completely drowned out by the political machinations.
    What the Australian experience shows is that any government tackling climate change needs as broad a consensus as possible, and that it should be done for the right reasons, not political expediency



    Tuesday, July 16, 2013

    Planet Earth Does Not "Lose" Ice

    Breaking news: planet Earth does not "lose" ice or water.  Ice either melts into water and is stored in the oceans, lakes, rivers, atmosphere or underground reservoirs.  When ice is not melting, water is being added to glaciers as snow and ice.  This cycle of cooling and warming, melting and freezing, has been going on essentially since the creation of the Earth.  Note this has been going on longer and is controlled by forces far greater than humans burning fossil fuels.

    Here is a summary of what is known as the Earth's Hydrologic Cycle, taken from this blog.  You can do a search of this blog and find much more.
    Peter

    Jan 24, 2008
    It seems a refresher course in the basics of the Earth's hydrologic cycle is in order. First of all, it needs to be understood that there is a finite, or relatively fixed amount of water on or in the Earth. This does not, has not, and can ...



    Chilling Report: Earth Loses 300 Billion Tons of Ice Each Year

    It is amazing to see because it feels so clearly out of place, but in some spots along Antarctica’s coast you can actually find hints of grass and other plant life—green evidence that in parts of the long-frozen continent the ice is thinning, and fast.
     
    But just how much ice is being lost? A new, ten-year study conducted by Bristol University’s Glaciology Centre says that between Antarctica and Greenland, the answer is 300 billion tons a year.
    That’s a lot of ice cubes.

    In scientific terms, a decade makes for a short study; this one can’t forecast whether this kind of loss will sustain into the future. (Though reasoned experts believe it will and may even accelerate.) But if it continues at this pace, goodbye Miami, Hong Kong, New York City, etc., as well as the homes of hundreds of millions who live on estuaries, deltas, coral atolls and great city river basins around the globe.

    The two massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica combined—the ice in Antarctica is three miles thick at some places—contain 99.5 percent of the earth’s glacier ice. If it were all to melt (which would admittedly take centuries), sea levels would rise by 500 to 600 feet.
    I’ve been to Antarctica on a couple dozen different trips, mostly along it’s long, skinny Peninsula, which because it is surrounded by warming ocean on both sides is the area most-impacted by the planet’s changing climate. It’s there each austral summer that more shorelines are exposed thanks to disappearing ice, and where you find hints of plant life. (How did the seeds get there? Most likely hitchhiking on fishing boats and visiting tourist ships, both growing in numbers.)

    Another satellite study, conducted over the past 20 years by NASA and the European Space Agency, confirms the Bristol study, reporting that the planet’s ice sheets have melted faster in the last 20 years than in the last 10,000.

    According to this study, melting ice from both poles has been responsible for a fifth of the global rise in sea levels since 1992. The rest was caused by the thermal expansion of the warming ocean, the melting of mountain glaciers, small Arctic ice caps and groundwater mining. The share of the polar ice melt, however, is rising and most concerning.

    When it comes to Antarctica, though, it can be tricky to generalize. It is a huge continent; the U.S. could easily fit inside its borders. In the huge area of East Antarctica, where the ice is mostly above sea level, the air temperature is also much lower, and the experts do not expect the ice to melt on account of rising temperatures. In this part of Antarctica, the ice sheet is actually growing as a consequence of increased snowfall.

    But today, using a variety of satellite reports and on-the-ice studies that have been going on for many decades, even conservative scientists say sea levels are rising 60 percent faster than what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted in 2007.

    No Sea Level Rise, No Consensus, No Surprise


    The fact that scientists cannot measure, nor predict any future world-wide sea level rise is certainly no surprise to me.  The same should be true to anyone with any knowledge of basic Earth history.  Actually the same should be true of any thinking person who has been to the beach, looked out over the vast ocean, flown over the ocean, looked at a globe, or watched any of many video documentaries shown often on television.  If fact this should be true of anyone who has not been totally brainwashed by one of Al Gore's pseudo scientific "documentaries" like "An Inconvenient Truth", or to anyone who has not been totally mind-numbed by our public education system.

    In spite of a lack of consensus about future sea level rise, and it being an obviously politically-motivated, fear-driven hoax, the fearful spectre of catastrophic sea level rise continues to be rammed down people's consciousness' by the liberal controlled mainstream media.  Wow, major scandal, right?  No, it seems people have been lulled to sleep.  But anyone who is the least curious about the subject ought to read the following article.
    Peter
     

    'There is no scientific consensus' on sea-level rise, say scientists

    sealevelriseThere isn't enough data to say with any certainty what will happen to sea levels around the world this century, and there is no "scientific consensus" to suggest that the rate of the seas' rise will accelerate dangerously.
    That's according to a group of eminent specialists based in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. Writing in hefty boffinry journal Nature Geoscience this week, the assembled experts have this to say [Our emphasis]:
    The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been reported to be losing mass at accelerating rates ... However, at present there is no scientific consensus on whether these reported accelerations result from variability inherent to the ice-sheet–climate system, or reflect long-term changes ...
    The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are very important factors in forecasting the rate at which the seas might rise in the coming century, which is perhaps the primary reason to be concerned about global warming and associated climate changes.
    During the 20th century, sea levels as measured by tide gauges rose about 17cm, just short of 2mm a year. The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that "no long-term acceleration of sea level has been identified using 20th-century data alone", but the organisation nonetheless forecast rises in the 21st century of 26-59cm as many scientists think that the rate of rise will increase seriously due to global warming.
    Many others boffins assess that the ice sheets are so massive that they will take centuries to respond to likely levels of warming. Recent first-of-its-kind analysis pulling together all the factors in play suggested that the worst possible case in 2100 would be 30cm with the likely result less - in other words, no major change from the 20th century situation. And that was before new studies came out reflecting the fact that global warming has been basically on hold for the last decade and more, meaning that warming forecasts should be revised downwards.
    Be all that as it may, the next IPCC report is now being produced. It will attempt to reflect what the various committees and advisors believe to be the scientific consensus on various matters including sea levels. But it appears that there simply isn't any scientific consensus on the Antarctic and Greenland melt rates - and therefore there isn't one on sea levels either.
    You wouldn't necessarily know this. Various organisations, for instance the Google-funded alarmist activism organisation Climate Central, say that there is a consensus and that it centres on a much higher figure - one or even two metres of rise by 2100. ("Scientists expect" this, we are told by the Google mouthpieces.)
    One of the authors of the new study today, Professor Jonathan Bamber of Bristol uni, carried out a previous effort to work out what scientists think sea levels will do, in which metre-range rises were described as "conceivable" but highly unlikely.
    "Expert opinion is shown to be both very uncertain and undecided," that study said.
    The scientists compiling the new assessment say that there simply isn't enough data yet (especially from the GRACE satellites which have lately produced such surprising results on glacier and ice sheet mass) to know what will happen. In the case of the Greenland ice sheet, at least another ten years of data will be required.
    According to a Bristol uni statement released to highlight the research:
    As a result, extrapolation of the current contribution to sea-level rise of the ice sheets to 2100 may be too high or low by as much as 35 cm. The study, therefore, urges caution in extrapolating current measurements to predict future sea-level rise.
    IPCC drafters, take note.
    Source

    Ignorance and Bias Passed Off As Global Warming Journalism?

    It is amazing that anyone so uneducated and ignorant about the basics of science would write an article about global warming, its causes and its effects on climate.  What is sad is there are so many people who believe things like written in the following article.  Sad and dangerous.  This is akin to playing the race or the gender card in politics.  Oh, and this writer even dragged in the perennial "bad guy", by speculating that oil companies are paying off Congressmen.  That is not only inaccurate, it is way too old, disproved, and not even imaginative.  The equation the author of the following article is really trying to prove is 2+3 = 4.
    Peter

    When It Comes to Climate Change, This Is the Only Equation You Need to Know


    Takepart.com – 10 hrs ago
     
    I didn’t go to science school, or anything amazing like that, but I’m fairly certain the following mathematical equation—which I just made up like 20 minutes ago—accurately and succinctly summarizes the current state of the climate-political complex in the United States.
     
     
    X + Y = we’re screwed
    Please sit tight as I define the variables of my newfangled equation:
    X = The World Meteorological Organization recently released a report on the years 2001 to 2010. As reads go, it was royal snooze. As warning shots go, it was a howitzer of the first order. According to the study, the first decade of the twenty-first century was the hottest since the start of modern measurements in 1850. The hottest. In 160 years!

    This heat surge lead to “a rapid decline in Arctic sea ice and accelerating loss of net mass from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and from the world’s glaciers.”
    The most tragic thread of the report? That'd have to be the 370,000 people that were killed by climage-change fueled extreme weather events like hurricanes and droughts in the last decade. This is a 20 percent increase from the 1990s.

    And now for the really depressing news:
    Y = Last week, Climate Progress published a truly vexatious infographic that exposes just how deeply intertwined the tentacles of the fossil fuel industry are with some members of the one hundred thirteenth Congress.

    Says the report: 115 current beltway baby-kissers have welcomed with open arms—and no doubt smug smirks and sly winks—more than $51 million in campaign contributions from big oil and gas. As part of this quid pro quo deal, these members of Congress are then responsible for standing in lockstep opposition to any legislation—be it Obama’s appointment to the EPA or, say, the House's 2009 climate change bill—that would in any way, in any way, curb greenhouse gas emissions. These are the very same emissions, need I remind you, that 97 percent of peer-reviewed climatologists unquivocably say is causing climate change.

    So, to summarize:
    We’re speeding for the climate cliff and the traffic cops have dropped their radar guns to count their bribe money with both hands.