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| The Climate Change News |
| 01.11.06 (10:21 pm) |
By Mike Johnston
I broke my bicycle out and took a ride this afternoon in jeans and a hoodie. I was comfortable. In fact, by the time I had ridden a couple miles I had worked up a good healthy sweat. It is in the 50's today, January 9th, 2006, in Brooklyn, NY. Not just today either, all week it is supposed to be like this with it possibly getting warmer toward the end of the week with rain expected for Saturday. I talked to my girlfriend in Maryland and she said it was in the 60's there. At the same time Britain and India are freezing. Is this evidence of climate change? I don't know. Maybe no one knows. Or maybe we have pretty solid suspicions but we really don't WANT to know. Maybe that is more accurate, we don't WANT to know.
Shirt sleeve weather
Photo taken 01/09/06 in Brooklyn, NY. by the Author
Freeze or bake or global paradise, which will it be? I suppose that Global Warming is the more scary of the two choices (Global Cooling being the other) that are housed under the umbrella of the term Climate Change. But what of Global Cooling, I think that could be worse than warming. I say this based on the idea that releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere that is produced by burning fossil fuels could change the climate. If cold is the result then we will want more heat. More heat will require us to burn more fossil fuels. Burning more fossil fuels will release more CO2. More CO2 will make it get colder...and on and on....
Why wouldn't we want to know though? I mean if the climate of our world is being radically, perhaps permanently altered shouldn't we care? I guess that depends on whether or not we feel like we can reverse whatever change takes place. If we can then sure, let's get to work. If we can't...better to just ignore it and hope it goes away. Sound logic? No. Human nature? Yes.
Then there is the camp that says change is beneficial. Ok, maybe. But that is a hell of a gamble to take on a maybe. Once again, if it isn't good news we really don't want to hear it. Being able to make people believe whatever you tell them is not necessarily the same thing as telling the truth. Maybe turning northern Canada and Siberia into beach resorts will NOT be good for the rest of the world.
What are some other potential effects of climate change? Growing seasons and precipitation patterns could change and this could negatively affect agriculture over vast areas (no more food). If it was 30 degrees in July in North America and 130 degrees in Britain you could say there wasn't really climate change but crops would be just as devastated. Diseases could also find new hosts in new environments if such changes occur. Maybe Malaria, for example, will become a problem in the United States. Maybe new epidemics will run virtually unchecked in populations with little or no resistance to them. Ocean habitats too will change and the question is whether nature can adapt fast enough to allow we humans to maintain our present cushy lifestyle. I have no doubt that the Earth and nature will go on, the question is whether or not we will go on with them.
I guess this is the Artist's vision of a possible future in NYC
This is a closeup of the Statue Of Liberty portion of the above mural
Photos of a wall in Queens by the Author
If nature can adapt fast enough can then maybe we will have a new global paradise with warm, balmy breezes and plentiful resources for all. Maybe the entire world will become a "land of milk and honey". On the other hand it might not. It is that second possibility that worries me and should worry everyone who gives a damn because the changes that may occur could happen in our lifetimes. It is easy to push stuff aside when it is far enough in the future or to rely on human ingenuity to solve the problem when it arises. But when it might happen next year and it is then up to you to solve the problem...well it isn't nearly as reassuring.
Could we in the United States be doing more? Many people in the rest of the world think so. But the Bush Administration has apparently adopted an attitude of "wait and see" in regard to climate change. That might be prudent in many situations but in this case one has to wonder if we are missing a very important and perhaps final opportunity to at least try to do something before it is too late. So we continue to pump oil out of the ground and to burn it as fast as we pump it. Oil companies report record profits and the status quo is maintained for another year. But deep in the masses the unrest grows. Signs of it are appearing more frequently. Signs like the photo of the wall above or the photo of another piece of artwork below.
Cheney as a worm
Photo of art in Brooklyn by the Author
In this issue I present links to stories which I think are relevant. Nothing earthshaking just various indicators from seemingly otherwise unrelated areas. The bird flu threat seems to be something which bears watching at the moment. The lethal strain has now officially escaped Asia and has killed in Turkey. Turkey is uncomfortably close to Europe. Europe to the United States via air travel. The CDC is more or less expecting a pandemic to develop and the US Government has advised concerned citizens to essentially "hide in your houses" till it all blows over (see story below). I want to do a story focusing on emerging diseases in the near future paying special attention to bird flu. Sometimes ignorance is NOT bliss.
In the meantime I will just do as we all do and keep on keeping on with my life. I will burn many gallons of fossil fuels every day as I make a living in the city and try to keep warm. I will consume products that are produced with polluting technology. I will buy many, many things which I really don't need and by so doing will be doing my part to keep our artificially constructed economy truckin along. I will buy products that are probably produced in third world sweatshops and that may even use child labor. I will continue to laugh and love and live. Not because I am ignorant, oblivious or don't care. Just because the scope of this problem is too big for me to do much more than watch it unfold and maybe to tell a few interested others about it. I am just like you. If you want to sign a petition to stop global warming please go to my sign up page here
Other News Today
Coldest December in Britain in a decade
The end of the coldest December in a decade in Britain has the nation in a cold snap, with temperatures of about 10 F and heavy snow.
Viruses which could shake the world
There are currently 10-15 life-threatening organisms and toxins that could be harnessed by terrorists and used as biological weapons, Russian scientist Anatoli Vorobev said in an article in the Gudok newspaper.
Delhi gets first winter ice in 70 years, Indian cold toll rises
The Indian capital has seen its first winter frost in 70 years as a cold wave sweeping in from the frigid heights of the Himalayas killed more people in northern India overnight.
Scientists in uphill battle to fight bird flu
Fighting the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus is all the more difficult because experts are still figuring out how best to use Tamiflu, believed to be one of the very few defenses, scientists said.
Warm weather to spread disease
Climate change could lead to a dramatic rise in cases of food poisoning and water-borne disease.
The return of a classic to fuel production
Max Planck Institute of Coal Research celebrates 80 years of Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis to make fuels out of coal.
Tiny pikas seem to be on march toward extinction in Great Basin
The tiny rabbit-like pika, an animal species considered to be one of the best canaries in a coal mine for detecting global warming in the western United States, appears to be veering toward the brink of extinction in the Great Basin.
Two Turkish Victims Had Lethal Strain Of Bird Flu
Two teenage siblings who died of bird flu in Turkey last week were infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, the first time the strain has killed humans outside East Asia, the U.N. health agency said.
Groups to stage climate protest
GREEN groups are preparing to protest outside a climate-change conference in Sydney, a...
Tiny marine organisms reflect ocean warming
Sediment cores collected from the seafloor off Southern California reveal that plankton populations in the Northeastern Pacific changed significantly in response to a general warming trend that started in the early 1900s.
Fed's Recommendations for Bird Flu Pandemic? Stay Home.
Americans should be able to ride out any pandemic of bird flu if they stock up on supplies and keep their children clean, the government said yesterday. However, the Department of Health and Human Services checklist illustrates how little can be done to prevent widespread illness and disruption if an avian flu pandemic occurs.
Benefits of flu vaccine substantially overestimated says study
Studies of influenza vaccine effectiveness in elderly people substantially overestimate vaccine benefits, according to new research from the US published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology (IJE), edited at the University of Bristol.
Past gives clue to climate impact
A rise in global temperatures 55 million years ago shifted the global pattern of ocean currents, research reveals.
Surging oil prices, deepening concern about carbon pollution and sudden worries over Russia's reliability as a gas supplier have been a windfall for Europe's nuclear and renewable energy industries.
Pole Shift
The Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America so fast that it could end up in Siberia within 50 years, scientists have said.
climate change
Global Warming
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