REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

‘Time To Wake Up’

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Thursday, May 23, 2013 05:13
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VIEWED: 1013
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 5:58 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


GO Sheldon! How beautifully put:
Quote:

Standing before a poster of the earth with the words “TIME TO WAKE UP” in bold lettering, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivered a speech yesterday that he must have known would get under conservatives’ skins. Shortly after the devastating tornado first touched down in Oklahoma, and before the first images of the destruction began to emerge, the senator spent 15 minutes on the Senate floor tearing into Republicans for their rejection of climate science. When a tornado like this one hits Oklahoma, Whitehouse explained, it doesn’t just affect the people who live there–it affects all of us.

“We are stuck in this together,” he said. “When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. It hits Oregon with acidified seas, it hits Montana with dying forests. So, like it or not, we’re in this together.”

Whitehouse said he longed for a “Republican Party that has returned to its senses and is strong and a worthy adversary in a strong America that has done right by its people and the world.” He added, “I don’t want a Republican Party disgraced, that let its extremists run off the cliff, and an America suffering from grave economic and environmental and diplomatic damage because we failed, because we didn’t wake up and do our duty to our people, and because we didn’t lead the world. I do not want that future. But that’s where we’re headed. So I will keep reaching out and calling out, ever hopeful that you will wake up before it is too late.”

Conservative websites like The Daily Caller immediately jumped on Whitehouse for “using” the Oklahoma tragedy to push his “anti-GOP” climate policy agenda. These accusations of “politicization” after a horrific event like the Oklahoma tornado are reminiscent of the criticism President Obama and other Democrats received when they tried to pass meaningful gun legislation following the Newtown, Connecticut shooting.

For conservatives who oppose new laws to help curb climate change or gun violence (and even some liberals), it’s always “too soon” after a tragedy to start discussing the concrete steps we can take to prevent it from happening in the future.

Perhaps it’s President Obama’s role to console the people of Oklahoma for their horrible loss. But at the same time, there’s nothing wrong with a member of the Senate speaking out against the climate deniers who can’t see the evidence in front of their faces or accept the the overwhelming scientific consensus that shows a warmer climate causes stronger storms.

As Mother Jones‘ Harry J. Enten points out in an illuminating piece today, “we’ll never know whether larger global warming factors were at play in Monday’s storms.” Lowering the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere won’t eliminate every major tornado, hurricane and other devastating storm from happening, just as implementing stricter gun laws won’t prevent every mass shooting. But if scientists believe that cutting greenhouse gases will have a reasonable chance at lowering the probability that weather events will be as severe as the tornado in Oklahoma, don’t we have an obligation to try? Senator Sheldon Whitehouse certainly believes that to be the case, and that’s why he didn’t hesitate to “politicize” yesterday’s tragedy. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/time-to-wake-up-why-one-senator-was-brave-e
nough-to-politicize-the-oklahoma-tornado/



Take climate change out of it; there are so many other urgent things going on in our country which our elected REPRESENTATIVES should be dealing with, that everything he said that I underlined is doubly true, aside from climate change. MANY of us ON THE LEFT "don’t want a Republican Party disgraced, that let its extremists run off the cliff" and long for "a Republican Party that has returned to its senses and is strong and a worthy adversary in a strong America that has done right by its people and the world".

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 12:57 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Politicizing a tornado, in May, in Oklahoma, and trying to blame it on the GOP and global warming ?

I was going to post this as exhibit A as the Left's disconnect from reality, but Niki beat me to it.

Only she's actually PRAISING this whack-job cultist ???

I'm at a loss for words. There is zero rationing w/ those who have lost ALL reason.

Indeed. It IS time to wake up, and cast down this cult of man caused global warming, once and for all.


( newsweek, 1975 )

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/1975-tornado-outbreaks-b
lamed-on-global-cooling
/


Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 3:38 PM

OONJERAH


Experts: CO2 record illustrates 'scary' trend (May 11)

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/05/11/co2-scary-trend/21527
17
/

"The chief greenhouse gas was measured Thursday at 400 parts per million in Hawaii, a monitoring site that sets the world's benchmark. It's a symbolic mark that scientists and environmentalists have been anticipating for years.


"What we see today is 100% due to human activity," said Tans, a NOAA senior scientist.


"The world sent 38.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air in 2011, according international calculations published in a scientific journal in December. China spews 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air per year, leading all countries, and its emissions are growing about 10% annually. The U.S. at No. 2 is slowly cutting emissions and is down to 5.9 billion tons per year.


"The speed of the change is the big worry, said Pennsylvania State's Mann. If carbon dioxide levels go up 100 ppm over thousands or millions of years, plants and animals can adapt. But that can't be done at the speed it is now happening."

====================

Please read the whole article if you wanna feel really hopeless & depressed.

-OR-

Check Green Tech web sites and Science Faires for inventions and ways to possibly help.


Yeah ... I know we're past the tipping point. Doesn't mean we can give up.

BTW, don't take time to waste your breath on confirmed denialists. They cannot learn.


======================

A man's gotta know his limitations. ~Dirty Harry

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 4:07 PM

MAL4PREZ


Rappy is such a moron. (As if we didn't know that already!) I'm not trying to explain anything to him, because he was past hearing logic years ago, but for other folk who haven't seen the RWED threads that explained this already...

The global cooling scare of the 70s was largely invented by a few of the usual scare-mongering press. Scientists figured out the Milankovich cycles - variations in the Earth's orbit which matched past climate variations and predicted that we were heading into an ice age.

Now what doorknobs like Rappy don't get is that science is a continual process of discovery, rather than a simple "THERE IS ONE ANSWER AND THIS IS IT" belief system like what RWAs like him rely on to settle their personal insecurities and make them feel safely superior.

However, back in reality, what scientists soon discovered is that ice sheets are melting rather than spreading. This fit observations of carbon levels in the atmosphere, which fit amounts of carbon released by human activity.

Hence, the now very well-supported theory of global warming.

But don't expect the mentally juvenile among us to understand the complexities of reality.

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 4:18 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Quote:

The global cooling scare of the 70s was largely invented by a few of the usual scare-mongering press.


Liar. Or idiot. Take your pick. The global cooling con was every bit as embraced by the scientific community then as the global warming con is today.

Only thanks to aggressive guerrilla propaganda methods, and big govt sympathizers who love nothing more than to tax the ever living hell out of everyone ( those mean 1% ) the revelation that the dumb masses ( say it real fast ) can be duped into buying this fairy tale and feel good about it too, has evolved into an extremely broad and sophisticated disinformation complex.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 4:24 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT




E-T-A Ignore this post. I was WRONG . see below-- NOBC


Hey, the guy's a registered, elected Republican. How can he have an anti-GOP agenda? Doesn't the Rhode Island party vet candidates? Doesn't the national? (Oh, yeah, they let McCain have Palin, didn't they. Maybe not.) Didn't Rhode Island Repub voters choose him in the primary? Didn't ALL the voters in his district ELECT him? Haven't the R's been letting him vote at caucuses? Haven't they been talking to him every day,counting on his vote on every roll call?

And what are they gonna do about it anyway? Kick him outta the party? Tell him to go hang out with the Dems?

They might be able to RECALL him, if they can get enough signatures on the petitions, and then enough votes. They can certainly nominate somebody against him next primary. They can probably move his office to a broom closet in the basement. They can harass him. But unless they ACTUALLY recall him, he's got the job until the next election.

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 4:36 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Quote:

Hey, the guy's a registered, elected Republican. How can he have an anti-GOP agenda? Doesn't the Rhode Island party vet candidates?


Umm, no. He's not.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a Democrat.


Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 5:28 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Quote:

The global cooling scare of the 70s was largely invented by a few of the usual scare-mongering press.


Liar. Or idiot. Take your pick. The global cooling con was every bit as embraced by the scientific community then as the global warming con is today.




Cites? You claim that it was accepted by more than 97% of the scientific community (you DO know what "every bit as embraced" means, don't you?); prove it. Show your evidence or admit you're lying.



"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 5:43 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Quote:

Hey, the guy's a registered, elected Republican. How can he have an anti-GOP agenda? Doesn't the Rhode Island party vet candidates?


Umm, no. He's not.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a Democrat.




Oops! Hey, I made a mistake. Mark this one down on yer calendars, kiddos, It don't happen often. I misread the D for an R.

"C'mon, NOBC, you can do it. The D is the fat roundy one with one flat side. AN R is a little round one on a stick with a goofy extra leg."

" Duh, OK, I get it. D like dog, R like Rat."

Take a lesson, y'all. I WAS WRONG. I GOOFED. I CAN ADMIT IT. Didn't hurt a bit.

IN that case, yeah, of course he could have an anti-GOP agenda. I'd be surprised if he didn't. Doesn't make him wrong.

'Nother post on this topic coming, but it's kinda long, I'm gonna write it offline, probably post tomorrow.

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Thursday, May 23, 2013 4:35 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/us/climate-change-tornado/index.html?

hpt=hp_t2

No evidence global warming spawned twister
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
updated 1:13 PM EDT, Wed May 22, 2013
Quote:



(CNN) -- Yes, climate change is happening. But it's hard to say that

the tornado that ripped through Moore, Oklahoma -- or any given

tornado, for that matter -- was influenced by climate change.

Scientific research has not made a clear connection between tornadoes

and climate change, said J. Marshall Shepherd, climate change expert

and professor at the University of Georgia.

There is currently a much better understanding of how climate change

increases the risks of droughts, heat waves and precipitation, he

said. There are also indications that changing patterns may influence

the intensity of hurricanes. But as far as tornadoes: There's just not

a lot of information.




There's more. Saw this on the CNN.com home page yesterday, but it's gone today. The link is still good. I don't see that as a sinister plot by CNN, but I do find it curious.

I do agree with CNN's science guy, and disagree with the Dem from Rhode Island. I'm not sure the connection can be PROVED yet. I think it's too soon to tell, it's been, what, 3 days?

Intuitively I can make the case. Tornadoes are caused by the hot, moist air from the Gulf running into the colder, dryer air from Canada. That's why they mostly happen on the Great Plains-- there's nothing in the way, and the moving masses of air get funneled by the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. If global warming causes that Gulf air to be warmer, and evaporates more sea water, making it wetter, there's more energy, so bigger tornadoes. If global warming actually means climate change, could mean that the air from Canada is colder and dryer. There seems to be evidence about hurricanes.

Climate change would explain colder winters, hotter summers, longer droughts, bigger storms, worse fire seasons, stronger hurricanes. Bigger tornadoes would be a logical symptom. But this is only one. If we get some more, that would suggest a strong link.

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Thursday, May 23, 2013 5:13 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Regarding tornadoes, nobody is claiming tornadoes are proven to be affected by climate change, they are far too complicated for anyone to have definitively proven one way or another; we may never be able to. "Global warming" certainly didn't "spawn" this particular tornado per se, but the increase in MORE VIOLENT WEATHER is the issue (not to mention that, as I posted, he's also talking about the idiocy of the GOP AND mentions "your polluters"--the latter a separate issue, but if we want to debate whether the right has made pollution easier and that has affected the health of us all...).

Nonetheless, there are relative points to be made on the issue of climate change and tornadoes, as I posted in Rap's silly "chilly" thread:
Quote:

It turns out that of all the weather phenomena, from droughts to hurricanes, tornadoes are the most complex to answer from a broader atmospheric trends point of view. The reason is that a warming world affects the factors that lead to tornadoes in different ways.

Climate change is supposed, among other things, to bring warmer and moister air to earth. That, of course, would lead to more severe thunderstorms and probably more tornadoes. The issue is that global warming is also forecast to bring about less wind shear. This would allow hurricanes to form more easily, but it also would make it much harder for tornadoes to get the full about lift and instability that allow for your usual thunderstorm to grow in height and become a fully-fledged tornado. Statistics over the past 50 years bear this out, as we've seen warmer and more moist air as well as less wind shear.

Meteorological studies differ on whether or not the warmer and moister air can overcome a lack of wind shear in creating more tornadoes in the far future. In the immediate past, the jet stream, possibly because of climate change, has been quite volatile. Some years it has dug south to allow maximum tornado activity in the middle of the country, while other years it has stayed to the north.

Although tornado reporting has in prior decades been not as reliable as today because of a lack of equipment and manpower, it's still not by accident that the six least active and four most active tornado seasons have been felt over the past decade. Another statistic that points to the irregular patterns is that the three earliest and four latest starts to the tornado season have all occurred in the past 15 years.

Basically, we've had this push and pull in recent history. Some years the number of tornadoes is quite high, and some years it is quite low. We're not seeing "average" seasons as much any more. Expect this variation to continue into the future as less wind shear and warmer moister air fight it out.

The overall result could very well be fewer days of tornadoes per Harold Brooks of the National Storm Center, but more and stronger tornadoes when they do occur. Nothing about the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, or tornadoes over the past few decades break with this theory. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/21/moore-oklahoma-tornado-cli
mate-change


Whitehouse's comments are definitely not "Crazy From the Left", his point about the extremism and idiocy of the Republicans has been made and IS being made by REPUBLICANS, too, and they're warning about it.

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