Fresh from the Washington Post's website,
Study: Inaction on Warming Will Be Costly-Scientists Say Current Pattern Could Overwhelmingly Transform Northeast.
People in Philadelphia would swelter through as many as 30 days over 100 degrees each summer. The entire Northeast ski industry except western Maine would likely go out of business. And spruce and hemlock forests -- as well as song birds such as the Baltimore oriole -- would all but disappear from New Jersey to the Canada border.
These are some of the conclusions of a two-year study by the public interest group Union of Concerned Scientists of the effects of global warming in the Northeast if current greenhouse gas emission patterns around the world continue unabated. Winters will be on average 8 to 12 degrees warmer by the end of the century, and summers 6 to 14 degrees hotter.
Preview of coming attractions?
The study, called "Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast." was done by Cambridge, MA based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), 50 scientists and economists and was peer-reviewed. It's the most in-depth report produced to date and took two years to produce.
Listen, we have a very limited period of time, ten years or less, in which we can have an impact on the liklihood of a very grim future here in the Northeast (if that's the center of your universe), and elsewhere (where I know your heart is capable of going). If we continue to sit on our policy thumbs instead of quickly reducing our carbon emissions, the report authors predict that by the end of this century:
Summers in New England will resemble those of present-day Georgia.
As many as 20 days over 100 degrees each summer.
Sea level rise over a foot, endangering our beaches and waterfront cities.
100 year floods in Boston every two to three years will put landmarks like Faneuil Hall and the Boston Garden, as well as much of the downtown subway system, under water.
A quadrupling of "bad air days" due to extreme heat making it dangerous to work or play outside
The near disappearance of winter and the multi-billion dollar recreation and tourism economy in much of New England
Minor, I suppose, compared to what the Bangladeshis will know. With so little time to have an impact on our changing climate, I'm trying very hard to figure out why so many of our politicians in BOTH parties think that building coal refineries (coal gasification, IGCC, or whatever Orwellian term you'd like to use) and Hydrogen (made from coal) as a fuel are good ideas. I read reports like this I wonder why those billions aren't instead flowing towards wind, solar, and tidal projects instead of subsidizing our stupidity.
ugh. It's all been said.