It’s the Climate, Stupid

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) wrote to me today to let me know that she intends to do something about global warming. Me and tens of thousands of her closest friends, probably. Still, I was glad to hear from her. She’s been bringing up the subject of climate change often since the election–and before, though now she has a chance to be heard.

An Earth Day Network poll conducted in October showed that

Americans are worried about global warming - 58 percent say it will have a “great to extreme” impact on their children’s future and two out of three agree it will adversely impact the U.S. economy over the next ten years.

My worry is surely strong enough to count double in any nationwide poll. And what are the other 42% thinking? They’re probably still believing the Inhofe vacuity (R-OK). A few years ago in a speech on the Senate floor, he perpetuated conservatives’ war on science. He wrote of his speech,

I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations.

I wonder if he has changed his mind, whether he thinks Al Gore made it all up, or what. I know. He’s still calling it a hoax. Get that man out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and get Boxer in! What a relief.

Now that climate change is going to be a serious issue, it will help to understand the what and how of it. There are so many important stories on climate change that I don’t know where to start.

• Truth Out has a long list of climate change stories.

• John Mohawk on Prophecy and Survival has several years of climate change news excerpts with an emphasis on what peoples have learned in the past that might help us to navigate the future.

• Of course, you could see An Inconvenient Truth. I’ve heard of frequent community showings and house parties presenting the movie in Salt Lake City lately.

• The recent review of 866 scientific studies on climate change makes compelling reading.

• If you doubt that warmer temperatures are causing harm, look at the images from Tuvalu, an island nation in the Pacific (several small islands and atolls). The highest point is 16ft above sea level. Actually, it may not be that high any longer. The people will need to be evacuated soon (those not yet gone) because the sea level is rising. Warmer temperatures = melting ice = rising seas.

• For general coverage and an overview of climate change, should you need it, I find the BBC more helpful than US news sites. The British have acknowledged the problem, being an island nation themselves, and they are addressing it more directly.

One Response to “It’s the Climate, Stupid”

1. Piper Pehkonen Says:
   December 9th, 2006 at 7:57 am

   I was intrigued to read about the Inhofe Vacuity. It sounds like one of those peculiar named phenomena you sometimes read about in science textbooks.

   I’ll bet there are many more of these vacuities all over the red states. People living near one should probably watch out.

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