TOP STORY
Inhofe views global warming as the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" because anthropogenic global warming is not threatening. Now, Inhofe wants an investigation of climate science after the hacking and posting online of some email correspondence among a few climate scientists.
If global warming is a hoax, then just from the news this weekend, there must be 5 countries, our military and polar bears involved in a conspiracy to perpetuate this fraud on the world.
The U.S. is militarizing Arctic waters to protect undersea riches revealed by melting polar ice due to global warming. (Photograph of submarine USS Annapolis "on the surface of the Arctic Ocean after breaking through one metre of ice" in 2009 during "Ice Exercise.") More pictures from 2007 Navy Exercises.
The U.S. has practiced wartime operations off the coast of Alaska since 1958 because arctic submarine operations are "important to U.S. national defense."
However, now with climate change melting ice, the U.S. has drafted a roadmap (that acknowledges rising temperatures worldwide) to enlarge fleets in northern waters to "defend national security" and "potential undersea riches" that may now be accessible due to the melting: energy reserves, transport lanes and potential territory disputes.
The U.S. navy is planning a massive push into the Arctic to defend national security, potential undersea riches and other maritime interests.
An "Arctic roadmap" by the Department of the Navy details a five-year strategic plan to expand fleet operations into the North in anticipation that the frozen Arctic Ocean will be open water in summer by 2030.
While the plan talks diplomatically about "strong partnerships" with other Arctic nations, it is clear the U.S. is intent on seriously retooling its military presence and naval combat capabilities in a region increasingly seen as a potential flashpoint as receding polar ice allows easier access.
It's not just the U.S.: "Russia planted a flag in the waters deep beneath the North Pole in 2007 in a symbolic claim." Last year, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the Arctic might hold "90 billion barrels of oil" or "enough to meet world demand for three years."
There is an "international race for control of northern waters" by Russia, Canada, Denmark, U.S. and China" that is a "nod to global warming" as countries prep for ice free Arctic.
Maybe Inhofe figures all 5 governments are conspiring to perpetrate this global warming hoax by jockeying for control of the Arctic. Inhofe has now added some generals as at least complicit in this hoax. Inhofe "trashes generals who advocate for bipartisan clean energy legislation" as "craving the limelight" when the generals point out the national security threat from climate change. Inhofe might want to brush up on a list of predicted climate change impacts by continent for this century that shows the national security threats: Impacts include water shortage, flood, economic disruption, disease, mudslides, food shortages, heatwaves, biodiversity loss, species extinction, and desertification.
Oh, and the polar bears must be co-conspirators of this hoax. Starving polar bears turn to cannibalism because "waiting on land for sea ice to freeze so they can use it as a platform to hunt seals."
Scientists say shrinking Arctic sea ice may be forcing some polar bears into cannibalizing young cubs.
So far this fall, tour operators and scientists have reported at least four and up to eight cases of mature males eating cubs and other bears in the population around Churchill, Man. Four cases were reported to Manitoba Conservation and four to Environment Canada.
"That's a very big number," said Stirling, a retired Environment Canada scientist, who has studied the Churchill population for 35 years. "I worked there well over 30 years and never saw a single case of cannibalism."
Inhofe is going to Copenhagen too, presumably to continue "exposing the science, the costs and the hysteria behind global warming alarmism."
More climate change news... .
CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY
WATER & NATURAL RESOURCES
- Kenyans draw weapons over shrinking resources.
Experts fear the conflicts involving cattle, water and land may be just the beginning of climate-driven violence in Africa. At least 400 people have died in northern Kenya this year, the U.N. says.
Tales of conflict emerging from this remote, arid region of Kenya have disturbing echoes of the lethal building blocks that turned Darfur into a killing ground in western Sudan.
Tribes that lived side by side for decades say they've been pushed to warfare by competition for disappearing water and pasture. The government is accused of exacerbating tensions by taking sides and arming combatants who once used spears and arrows.
- New report (commissioned by water hoarders like Nestle) says water can not be recognized as a human right because that would interfere with pricing water in a manner to force conservation.
The bad: Global demand for water already exceeds supply - about 1.1 billion people don't have access to clean water - and the so-called water gap is increasing at an accelerating rate.
The good: Cost-effective, sustainable solutions are available to close the gap, particularly if governments and business focus on reducing demand rather than trying to generate additional supply.
The challenge: Getting beyond the nostrum that water is a "human right" so that water, which is obviously a scarce resource, can be priced in a way that drives conservation.
- Ecuador: the Amazon’s dirty war: "In the Ecuadorean Amazon basin our thirst for oil has triggered an eco-disaster: wholesale pollution and catastrophic cancer rates. And a bloody turf war has broken out. Ecuador is taking a survival plan to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. But will western governments listen?"
Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, is promoting a plan he describes as "not only simple, but audacious and revolutionary". In the run-up to next month’s UN climate-change conference in Copenhagen, he and his team have been circling the globe to drum up support for a scheme that would leave 850m barrels of oil in the eastern section of the park untouched underground.
In return for not pumping this oil, they are asking other countries to pay Ecuador $350m a year for the next 10 years to compensate for lost income. Correa’s plan is designed to preserve what is left of Yasuni’s unique biosphere and the territory of its indigenous people and would also prevent carbon-dioxide emissions caused by extracting and burning this oil — an estimated total of 410m metric tons of CO2.