Every day seems to bring more evidence that global warming is causing catastrophic damage to the planet’s ecosystems:
Last week, scientists warned that escalating carbon dioxide is increasing the acidity of the planet’s oceans and by century’s end could decimate coral reefs and the ocean life that depend on them.
Another study linked the growing number of Western forest wildfires in recent years to human-induced climate changes.
“We’re showing warming and earlier springs tying in with large forest fire frequencies,” said researcher Thomas Swetnam. “Lots of people think climate change and the ecological responses are 50 to 100 years away. But it’s not 50 to 100 years away — it’s happening now in forest ecosystems through fire.”
It makes you wonder: How much dire evidence will it take for global warming skeptics such as President Bush to be convinced of the need for action?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- Phantom on Huckabee felt costs of campaign
- Phantom on Huckabee felt costs of campaign
- GMC70 on Open thread 11/24
- Phantom on Huckabee felt costs of campaign
- okobserver on Open thread 11/24
- Phantom on It’s the stupidity about the economy
- okobserver on Open thread 11/24
- Regular on Goldman Sachs ‘apology’ hollow
- okobserver on Open thread 11/24
- donndublin on Open thread 11/24
29 Comments
The Wichita Eagle can do its part by stop using paper and going to only online or are they HYPOCRITES?
Interesting Right Angle, but what would that solve? not much…
now, if every paper in the country, or even the world would stop, than we have something…
but we cant do that than because still a majority of the country still receives its news from that old fashioned paper in the driveway…
now, i will say the paper SHOULD go to 100 percent already recycled paper (if it has already, i honestly dont know but assume it has). It should also use environmentally friendly inks so that in the event it does end up in a land fill rather than being recycled that it doesn’t pollute.
If every paper and publication (including the phone book) did this type of thing, that in and among its self would be a huge impact to environment. But, like what im sure Ben will point out later, that’s just one piece of a very complicated puzzle…
Oh and kudos to Randy for keeping on this subject… If it isn’t headline, people forget… I dont want to hand my children a planet that is dieing right in front of them… I would like for them to grow up without having to worry about the problems our and my parents generation created…
keep it up Randy…
Strange that this summer of 2006 here in Wichita seems to be one of the cooler summers with no 100 degree days so far that I can recall. Also lower humidity than usual. Is this my imagination? Any weather men out there?
Let me say, however, I’m not putting down the global warming problem which appears to be real according to weather scientists.
Actaully, none of this is new to anyone who has really been paying attention. We have been warning about both of these for years.
The fires, by the way, represent one part of a positive carbon-cycle feedback loop.
I disagree with Right Angle’s prescription. Why? Watch the movie 1984. Read about computer viruses and data losses. Electronic voting machine hacking. Enron and other companies cleaning their email and other records files.
Moreover, software and hardware evolution makes it impossible to archive information electronically for decades, much less centuries.
If you read a newspaper or book, and want to go back and check something you saw earlier, this is much easier than trying to do the same thing with a computer-screen format. If you want to go to the Op-Ed page for the Eagle or Wall Street Journal, you don’t need to know the page number–you just open the last page of the first section. If you want to skim through articles, it’s easy.
Paper is a marvelous invention. We can sustainably grow plants to make paper.
I’m going to watch the program about Global Warming on the Discovery channel that premeirs this coming Sunday. “No Politics, just facts.”
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/globalwarming/globalwarming.html?clik=www_wh_1
Oh Great! I just read a synopsis about the Discovery Channel’s Global Warming special. They’ve been advertising it as “No politics, just facts.”
Come to find out they show protesters with Bush’s picture saying “Toxic Texas”.
They also didn’t have a single comment about the natural warming cycle of this earth. They are only going to speak about the man made effects.
Tom Brokhaw who is narrating the show says he was inspired by Al Gore and his money making movie “Inconvient Truth”, so Tom wanted to do a show of his own about it.
Damn! I’m going to still watch it, but I still think there is going to be a fair amount of politics involved.
Is there anything that politics doesn’t have their greesy hands on?
Thank you Joe for re-posting that link… I posted it on the earlier Global Warming blog…
I think everyone should watch it and reconveine here after for a real debate.
Did it every occur to anyone that we have more and bigger forest fires because of our logging practices? We no longer clear cut. Environmental regulations prevent us from doing controlled burns to keep brush down.
Mother nature used to clear cut huge swaths. They were called forest fires. They created natural fire breaks. But that’s just to much of an inconvenient truth for the researchers of this latest study.
And the “man made global warming” issue is ALL about politics. It’s nothing new that “science” is used to manipulate the facts.
The Eagle has sure lost any sense of objectivity regarding this issue.
heartlander,
If you go to the newspaper office or the public library to find something published 50 years ago, do you see the actual newspaper?
I didn’t think so.
Microfilm? Microfiche?
We’ve been using different technological methods for archiving print and photos, etc., for many years.
JWink,
I haven’t kept a record of temps, but I think this year we had a 100 degree day in May. And just a few weeks ago, I remember hitting 101. So, yes, we’ve hit that 100 this year.
What I’ve noticed is that, not only have the temps of the seasons changed (we don’t have snow like we did when I was much younger), but the “change of seasons” has changed considerably since I was a kid. I remember real springs and autumns, even when I was in high school. For instance, with summer to winter, we now seem to sort of bounce from several days of heat, a day of cooler, then a few less days of heat at a few degrees cooler, followed by a few more cooler days, and back and forth, decreasing and lowering temps on the warm end, interspersed with increasing and lowering temps on the cool, until we reach a more steady winter cold. Spring and autumn as distinctive seasons have disappeared.
I’ve talked with others my age, and they see the difference, too. Even my kids, now in their 20’s, see some difference. And we noticed this BEFORE all the talk about global warming.
Not very scientific, I know, but human observation counts for something. My grandmother kept a daily journal where she noted the temp and weather conditions each day, among the other things she wrote. My mother has done the same, at least as an adult. It would be interesting to go back and read some of the older info and compare with now.
Another indication is in the records of freezing and melting of lakes and rivers. The frozen seasons (worldwide) are shorter than in the past.
Tony, heartlander,I subscribe to the online edition of the US News & World Report.Its format is just like the magazine, not the crappy format that the Wichita Eagle has.Try it, you will like it.
RA – you are assuming that everyone has a computer and wireless internet access. A lot of people read the paper on the way to work, etc.
Oh yes..let’s blame global warming on Bush. It is all his personal fault. yep.
While we are at it, why not blame the ice age on him as well? I mean..he had as much control over that as he does this.
Don’t start jumping all over me, I am not supporting him and am quite disappointed in a lot of things, but blaming global warming on one president is quite a stretch.
Have I ever blamed it all on Bush? NO.
Didn’t mean you, Ben…the lead of this topic, written by Randy Schofield says something about how much evidence is needed to get Bush’s attention…
Sorry Ben..wasn’t lashing out..
On that I will agree with randy – last time I checked Bush was President. Although Bush claims to recognize the problem exists he continues to scoff at doing anything about it.
I don’t think that anybody with any credibility blames Bush for global warming. What he takes a hit for is doing nothing about it, supporting policies that compound the problem, and generally being an ignoramus about the issue. The thing that pisses people off is, Bush could make a difference if he’d just pull his head out of his ass.
Global climate change and environmental issues are owned by those damned tree-hugging Liberals and conservatives would rather see the planet go down the crapper than agree with a liberal. Besides, why worry about something that won’t happen till we’re all dead and gone. Let the kids and grandkids worry about it.
Randy is right to single out bush. On addressing global warming or any other issue the president of the United States has more power to be proactive than any other person on the planet. At first, as a conservative, bush even refussed to acknowledge global warming. He has since been forced off that position but remains almost willfully negligent.
RD, I have gone to the central library basement to look up old WE stuff on microfilm. I hope, and think it is the real paper. I’ve also done a lot of other microfilm-microfiche research. These are pretty robust. If you needed to, you could look at them under a cheap microscope.
heartlander,
Right, and my point exactly. Technology has enabled us to keep records much longer than we would have been able to keep them and in a way that they take up a much smaller amount of space.
And I also agree with those who mentioned that not everyone has a computer available. Nor do those who don’t have the time or sometimes the opportunity to visit a library to use computers there. Therefore, the WE will continue to publish a real newspaper, until the time comes that it becomes obsolete.
Ever deal with some 20-year-old news clippings? Paper was a great invention, but the shelf-life isn’t so great. I’m always grateful that computers were made available for the common man and that newer and better ways of preserving the written word are being discovered every day.
RD, you’ve written romance novels. Did you print the galleys on paper, and were they published on paper, by any chance? I’m just asking.
PS *wink, grin*
Let me see if I’m getting Schofield’s point. All of a sudden, like a heat flash, evidence is being revealed by such experts as Al Gore that global warming is fast approaching. Man made, of course. No, scratch that, BushCo made. Highest temps in a thousand years. So….guess BushCo was around a thousand years ago when the temps were this high. As John Stossel says, GIVE ME A (FRICKEN) BREAK!!! Fact, figures, perspective. Got it!
One more thing. If SchofieldCo (and his types) would stop wasting time spinning their political ideological bull, they might have time to get their facts straight.
Stoessel – just what are HIS credentials?
ID? Home from camp ditto again? Randy posted coroboration for his assertions from SCIENTISTS ID! He also posted links. Many others have posted here and done much the same. Against that ID, your 2 posts look pretty weak. Irellevant even. “Fact, figures, perspective” you cry. Where are yours ID? I know Rush has given you some. I kinda thank you and don’t blame you for not bothering us with them though. Most of us trust scientists more than we do drug addicted, justice evading, whore hopping, limp dick, serial liar hosts of radio shows. No ID leave the important stuff to us grownups. Post again when you have something to say. Hell posting us about the lanyard you made at camp ditto would have more substance then those last 2.
Hey ID!When did science discover the importance of greenhouse gases to life on our planet? At least about 140 years ago,http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/general/history/john_tyndall.shtml(in brief bio) “He later speculated how changes in water vapour and carbon dioxide could be related to climate change.”—
“All of a sudden, like a heat flash,…” Huh?Al Gore has followed the issue since taking Professor Revelle’s class in the mid 1960’s. Climate change has been heavily researched internationally by the IPCC since 1988.
Fossil energy and right-wing ‘think tanks’(sic) have been conning people like you since the late 1980’s. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/skeptic-organizations.html
CO2 provides about 25% of Earth’s greenhouse effect. Humans have increased CO2 by 30% — burning oil and coal, deforestation, etc. Methane is up 149%. CFC’s, HFC’s, etc…
Explain why that increase in CO2 and other GHG’s will NOT cause climate warming — besides the time delay required to heat the oceans, and the (temporary) aerosol effect.