Planetary Ruin

With the ongoing economic crisis, primarily causeddue to housing crisis in the United States, many insitutions, governments and companies are facing dire financial stress.

As we all know, new technology to improve the effects of population (such as coal burning plants) require a high degree of initial start up investment. With the current situation causing such an impact on the spending habits of consumers and budgets of governments, there is a strong likelihood that many of the green initiatives will be closed down and starved to death.

It is crucial that we send a strong message that we WANT the items and products that help our planet, not destroy it! IF we demand fuel efficient vehicles instead of gas guzzling monsters, if we insist on fuel saving initiatives, if we show support by favoring companies that still have a desire to help the envirnment, THEN perhaps we will continue to move forward to a better future.

There isn’t much time left. Perhaps to you and me it won’t matter, but what about our children? Or their children? The decisions we make now will count. It will be too late for them if we chose poorly.

Whether it’s expensive or not to make the right choices, we happily chose the easiest path before, and now we are starting to see the consequences…we MUST reverse the damage we have done.

Make your choice now.

Researchers have found alarming evidence that the frozen Arctic floor has started to thaw and release long-stored methane gas. The results could be a catastrophic warming of the earth, since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It is estimated that methane as a green house gas is about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

It’s always been a disturbing what-if scenario for climate researchers: Gas hydrates stored in the Arctic ocean floor — hard clumps of ice and methane, conserved by freezing temperatures and high pressure — could grow unstable and release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, more worrisome than carbon dioxide, the result would be a drastic acceleration of global warming. Until now this idea was mostly academic; scientists had warned that such a thing could happen. Now it seems more likely that it will.

[link]

If we consider that the Greenland ice cap is melting at such a fast rate it is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break up and then melts, allowing more sunlight to hit the open water (ice reflects a large portion of the light hitting it back into space, protecting us from the heating effects of that light) – we have reason to be concerned.

In fact, according to some, we may actually have an ice free north pole this summer. (my personal view is this is unlikely for a few more years – BUT it wasn’t supposed to be happening for decades…)

“The issue is that, for the first time that I am aware of, the North Pole is covered with extensive first-year ice — ice that formed last autumn and winter,” Dr. Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., told The Independent newspaper in London. “I’d say it’s even odds whether the North Pole melts out.” – [Link]

Both the potential increase in released methane gas from the bottom of the ocean, combined with increased global temperatures due to increased energy absorption from the sun, is VERY likely to result in an over-all increase in the temperature of our planet.

Here’s the issue: Just HOW hot is it going to get?

Scientists are still arguing over how high the increase will be. Some say a few degrees, some say as high as 10 or 15…which would result in a mass extinction event, unless you happen to be bacteria. A few point to keep in mind is, just a few degrees would result in a big loss for food production… and currently global food stocks are the lowest they have been in 60 years.

Something to think about… perhaps even something to DO something about?

You tell me.

For scientists, global warming is a disaster movie, its opening scenes set at the poles of Earth. The epic already has started. And it’s not fiction.

The scenes are playing, at the start, in slow motion: The relentless grip of the Arctic Ocean that defied man for centuries is melting away. The sea ice reaches only half as far as it did 50 years ago. In the summer of 2006, it shrank to a record low; this summer the ice pulled back even more, by an area nearly the size of Alaska. Where explorer Robert Peary just 102 years ago saw “a great white disk stretching away apparently infinitely” from Ellesmere Island, there is often nothing now but open water. Glaciers race into the sea from the island of Greenland, beginning an inevitable rise in the oceans….

Complete Story

…The part that I find so unbelievable is the majority of people seem content to argue whether or not the global warming affects are being caused by humans.

 This is a moot question, and not one worthy of your time.

What should be obvious is that human activity, even if not directly responsible, is not helping the situation. And that situation is progressively becoming more and more alarming.

 So, the question should not be “Is it our fault?”, but rather “What can we do to minimize the damage?”

 Make no mistake, the damage will happen, and it is 100% up to us to decide how bad it will be.

If you must argue, argue about that.

The farmer at the centre of the first foot and mouth outbreak in Surrey has spoken of his shock at discovering his cattle were infected with the disease.
 
Farmer Roger PrideRoger Pride, who runs Woolford’s farm with his wife Valerie, said they were victims of circumstances beyond their control.

In a statement read at a news conference by Anthony Gibson from the National Farmers’ Union, Mr Pride described the moment when it was confirmed his animals were infected.

He said: “For a moment we couldn’t believe it. We were completely shocked and devastated.

“It felt as if our whole world was turned upside-down.”

He also said he believed floods may have carried the disease to his farm, because water from an overflowing sewer had spread across his fields.

Earlier, it was confirmed that a second outbreak of foot and mouth had been found on another farm, inside the three kilometre exclusion zone.

The cattle there had already been destroyed because of fears that they had the disease.

The NFU is now in discussions with Defra about shutting all footpaths and rights of way in the area to prevent further contamination.

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Research aimed at disputing the scientific consensus on global warming is part of a huge public misinformation campaign funded by some of the world’s largest carbon polluters, former Vice President Al Gore said Tuesday.

“There has been an organized campaign, financed to the tune of about $10 million a year from some of the largest carbon polluters, to create the impression that there is disagreement in the scientific community,” Gore said at a forum in Singapore. “In actuality, there is very little disagreement.”

Gore likened the campaign to the millions of dollars spent by U.S. tobacco companies years ago on creating the appearance of scientific debate on smoking’s harmful effects.

“This is one of the strongest of scientific consensus views in the history of science,” Gore said. “We live in a world where what used to be called propaganda now has a major role to play in shaping public opinion.”

After the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of the world’s top climate scientists, released a report in February that warned that the cause of global warming is “very likely” man-made, “the deniers offered a bounty of $10,000 for each article disputing the consensus that people could crank out and get published somewhere,” Gore said.

“They’re trying to manipulate opinion and they are taking us for fools,” he said.

He said Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, is one of the major fuel companies involved in attempting to mislead the public about global warming.

Last year, British and American science advocacy groups accused ExxonMobil of funding groups that undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. The company said the scientists’ reports were just attempts to smear Exxon Mobil’s name and confuse the debate.

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