2007 – An EF2 tornado touches down in Kings County and Richmond County, New York State, the most powerful tornado in New York to date and the first in Brooklyn since 1889.
1988 - Wrigley Fields hosts first Cubs game under lights. The earth responds by raining out the game after the third inning.
COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!
"[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she's just trying to save the planet. We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet -- we didn't need Nancy Pelosi to do that."
Michelle Bachmann
"I don't, however, buy into the whole man-caused global warming, man-caused climate change mantra of the left. I believe that there's not sound science to back that up."
Sharron Angle
FROM THE CHURCH OF INEFFABLE STUPIDITY:
On this day, just one year ago, Typhoon Morakot hit Thailand, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded. Southern Thailand was inundated by heavy rains, and most of the country experienced deadly floods.
Last week, one report suggested that thousands died in Russia, as wildfires continue to rage out of control. One set of fires is heading towards Chernobyl, another is blanketing Moscow with deadly soot and smoke, and yet another is approaching one of Russia's secret anthrax and WMD manufacturing sites. Russia has been forced to move a battalion of heavy missiles away from the approaching flames. If the fires reach Chernobyl, radioactive clouds may form from the burning growth, expanding the contaminated area greatly. NASA's images of the smoke are simply jaw dropping.
Carbon monoxide is becoming a huge threat. Russian Fires, July 2010
Last week, Pakistan suffered from huge floods, affecting millions, and displacing at least 700,000 people. The death toll has reached 2100 already. A lack of potable water, food, and sanitation may cause thousands of more casualties.
The Republican response can be best summed up by their two most oblivious and obvious leaders:
I am glad conservative republicans did not fall for the global warming hoax.
"ayn" Rand Paul
"And it didn’t make any sense because it was based on these global warming studies that now we’re seeing (is) a bunch of snake oil science."
Caribou Barbie
It is a shame that the GOP hate the US military so much. Here's what a detailed study by a number of highly regarded generals and admirals had to say on the subject:
Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and it presents significant national security challenges for the United States. Accordingly, it is appropriate to start now to help mitigate the severity of some of these emergent challenges. The decision to act should be made soon in order to plan prudently for the nation’s security. The increasing risks from climate change should be addressed now because they will almost certainly get worse if we delay.
The DOD's report on the national security threat posed by climate change can be read here.
One day after Obama met privately with Mitch McConnell (after which McConnell removed the holds on 40 nominees) McConnell promised that after November, he would do everything possible to stop Obama's agenda. Presumably, that includes any efforts to rein in carbon dioxide.
I strongly recommend that you read frisco's fine diary up on the rec page.
It is not just Mommy Nature at work. Here in the colonies, BP admitted that they used more than 1.87 MILLION gallons of Corexit, and while the FDA insists that all seafood from the gulf is safe for eating, For too many Americans, FDA's lame sounding proclamation reminds us of the EPA's boneheaded statement in NYNY, right after the World Trade Center collapsed. Even today, so many years later, thousands of first responders are suffering from serious, even fatal respiratory problems, made worse in part, by EPA's insistence that the air was safe to breath.
Honestly, who would dare feed Gulf seafood to pregnant women or children? Given BP's lack of honesty since the beginning of this underwater eruption, how can we dare trust them now? The manmade spill was bad enough. Who knows just how long the Coretoxin will stay in the gulf, making its way through the food chain, ending up in our livers, kidneys and destroying our pancreases?
Want to bet that some GOPers will demand an apology to BP, after seafood based cancer rates begin to jump? If anyone thinks this is over, just because the concrete block seems to be holding, think again. NASA oil spill images
More man made bad news: Biogenetic engineering has jumped ship and escaped into the wild, something that food producers promised would never and could never happen.
The scientists behind the discovery say this highlights a lack of proper monitoring and control of GM crops in the United States….
“The extent of the escape is unprecedented,” says Cynthia Sagers, an ecologist at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, who led the research team that found the canola. [Nature]
Though Sager does not believe that the modified canola will overtake North Dakota, she thinks the study is important for understanding how and to what extent a genetically modified crop can spread.
“We found the highest densities of plants near agricultural fields and along major freeways…. But we were also finding plants in the middle of nowhere–and there’s a lot of nowhere in North Dakota.” [BBC]
Genetically modified Canola goes wild.
What happens next? No one can predict anything. What is possible, however, is scary. The growth of superweeds might cause chemical companies to develop ever more toxic herbicides and weed control chemicals. Genetic modification may react badly with our own neurological and immune systems, causing the new foods to become toxic to us. Insects may react to biofoods in even more strange ways. Just look what happened to our bee industry. The Colony Collapse Disorder can destroy our production of food, if we can't find the cause, or at least, find a way to reverse it. Are pesticides or herbicides a cause? No one knows. Yet.
Let's not even raise the issue of mountaintop removal of coal. Creating blights is one thing at which we truly excel.
It is clear that we are doing great damage to Mommy Earth, and she is not happy about it. It is also clear that the GOP is doing everything possible to make things worse. On climate change, carbon caps, and even water and air pollution, the GOP seems intent only on maximizing profits, even if people get sick or die as a result.
In the face (farce?) of GOP extremism, how can we respond? And before you argue that injecting the real facts into a conversation, you should be aware that facts (especially with truly convinced GOP morons and idiots) is counter productive. See How Facts Can Make Things Worse.
It is known as the backfire phenomenon: misinformed people who are given correct information not only reject that information, but end up believing the wrong information even more strongly.
Political scientists Jason Reifler and Brendan Nyhan began looking at the “backfire” phenomenon because both were interested in improving political debate.
The “backfire” phenomenon can be seen in everything from different views on a call in a hockey game to the so-called weapons of mass destruction that were alleged to be in Iraq prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion, said Reifler, an assistant professor of political science at Georgia State University.
“We wanted to address ways in which citizens could essentially agree on what the basic facts in a political debate are,” he said. “And then we can disagree on the policy solution.”
Huge hail in Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, flooding in Tennessee, huge, lingering heat waves throughout the midwest, incredible rainfalls from here to New York - at some point, people may start asking, What the FUCK is wrong with our weather? As frisco suggests, it might be too late.