 | Arctic Ice Caps at Record Low for June |
CBC News reports on data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center indicating that the arctic ice caps are at a record low in their size for observations taken during the month of June. Says Walt Meier, a representative of the Data Center, “it’s an indication that the melt is progressing faster than normal. When you start melting the ice, you’re leaving the open ocean there, which absorbs much more solar energy and so it tends to heat up even more.”
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If you also read the related story about the Antarctic ice shelf breaking up, you see evidence of global warming. Really, if both poles are melting how can anyone still say that there is no global warming? The melt goes beyond typical, seasonal retreat of ice, it is obliteration of ice.
In the Antarctic story it is explained that the ice is breaking up for the first time since the last ice age–10,000 years ago. WTF?
I know fundamentalist Christians reconcile all of this by A) Denying it–”NO GLOBAL WARMING!” and B) Minimizing its importance by stressing that the rapture is coming, so it really doesn’t matter what you do as long as you are right with Christ. But, I sort of thought the idea of Man having dominion over the earth was sort of negated when we got kicked out of the garden…It’s all such a ridiculous collection of fairy tales but at least they could try to be consistent.
This news so angers and saddens me. What can we do?!
Comment by Laura — 8/4/2005 @ 11:53 am
I want to make clear why I am outraged by this news and then therefore proceed to attack, or question the extreme Christian Right. Normally, I’m quite tollerant of others’ beliefs. I certainly don’t have all of the answers. It doesn’t automatically seem that a story about environmental degradation is connected to fundamentalist thinking. Afterall, the first line culprits in this are all of the polluters of the world–high emission cars, factories etc. Those who produce all of that have got to be made accountable and must be made to reduce the polluting. There’s no way around that. There are mountains of EVIDENCE that we are effing up the earth.
It’s the fundamentalist thinking that’s setting policies that let polluters off the hook. It’s the fundamentalists who are eroding the notion of direct observation, proof , fact and are instead introducing a relativistic notion of theory. (See Mother Davis’ discussion topic of Intelligent Design Theology).
Honestly, it feels as if we are already in the Dark Ages again. We’re not headed that way–we’ve arrived. There is such an anti-intellectual climate that pervades all public discussion. The media doesn’t ask any probing questions. The public slaps yellow ribbons on their cars. Everything seems so rote and unquestioning.
AAAARGGGHHHH!!!!!! I’m sick of it.
WHAT CAN WE DO?!
Comment by Laura — 8/4/2005 @ 12:29 pm
What we can do,Laura, is what we should have done several years ago, and failed to do: Organize and vocalize! It worked during the Civil Rights movement, it worked to end the Vietnam war, hell, it’s working now for the Fundies! Why in the HELL haven’t we done it yet?
Oh, yes there have been some efforts in that direction, but it would seen that the the majority of those who “proudly” call themselves “The New Left” is either too busy or too uncaring…or maybe too afraid of policemen’s nightsticks and tear-gas, to actually get out there in the streets and show their outrage and committment, like their elders had to do. If you want change, simply sitting at your computer and pissing and moaning about the need for change won’t get the job done. And, I’m sorry, but it’s been a long time since I saw 10,000 or more people in the streets representing OUR side. Sorry if I have pissed anyone off, but I’m in a cantankerous mood today.
Comment by Mike — 8/4/2005 @ 12:56 pm
No no Mike, i agree with you and have been screaming the same message of apathy since Bush got “elected” the first time. i don’t know how far this administration has to go before the 51% who supposedly voted for this clown, this corporate puppet, will wake up and realize that the Republicans are not doing anything to help the common person - Republican, Democrat or independent. It’s all about corporate interest and payback. Sometimes i wish we had the kind of balls that the people in Georgia (former Russian republic) had when they detected fixed elections - friggin’ millions of people hit the streets and DEMANDED to be heard, they surrounded the federal buildings and outnumbered the police by a huge margin. Day and night it went on until the government was forced to concede. That’s the kind of commitment to honest government that would hold our elected robber-barons accountable. No outcry, no change (to paraphrase Bob Marley).
Comment by Tom — 8/4/2005 @ 1:51 pm
If it’s been a long time since you saw 10,000 or more people in the streets, then YOU HAVEN”T BEEN MARCHING. Dozens and dozens of marches of the liberal variety have surpassed that mark in the past five years. I’ve been at some of them. Where have you been, Mike?
Comment by Odd Claude — 8/4/2005 @ 1:51 pm
I’ve been active in the most redneck, Hyper-fundamentalist, Far-right-wing area of Northern California…for the last 20 years. Odd Claude, it’s easy to be progressive in a progressive environment. It’s a completly different experience up here, in Sutter County, believe me. I didn’t mean any offense, but I did mean to get the point across that this effort takes work…lots of it. And too many would rather sit back and say,”Ain’t it awful…” than actually get in there and get involved.
Comment by Mike — 8/4/2005 @ 9:42 pm
It feels like everyone’s just waiting for a disaster to break the continuing ignorance.
So… Political or natural disaster?
We’ve got war and global warming, how awful do they need to get before it’s enough to get people to change their minds?
And, more importantly, is there ANY way we can get people to see that the already existing and building disasters, albeit more subtle, are just as important?
Comment by HareTrinity — 8/6/2005 @ 5:32 am
Mike, if you live in Northern California you live within a couple of hours’ drive of one of the two hubs for large-scale marches in the nation. Check out pax.protest.net. I think something may be coming up in SF on 9.24.
Comment by Odd Claude — 8/6/2005 @ 5:58 am
HI all there! I would like to say there is no globalk warming in the arctic at all.
When we see satelite photos of the area we can notice that the ice pack is packing
towards Europe, and the ice its now premanente seetled east of the islands dividing the
Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans, my friends also I would like to tell, about the supposts
greenhouse gases, CO2,metano…etc they are inocent at all, water vapor IT IS ACTUALLY THE
TRUE AND ONLY GAS THAT KEEP WARM OUR PLANET…if we change our normal cars to Hidrogenium
Oxigenium engines then I belive, the levels of water vapor in the lower atmospher wil rise
temperatures causing the end of our world as we know now.
Acording to my information there is in mind of the big Power make us and each one of us pay
for our right to live ion our planet that is prevetion. They crat fears to make CO2 tax in
next years to came my friends… One scientist that try out cry the truth ME
Comment by Valter R. de A. P. — 1/26/2006 @ 10:59 am