A little less than nine years ago here at Daily Kos, I wrote a
diary in which I noted that the Bush administration had delayed publication of a report—the
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment—noting warming in the region:
Climate change will soon make the Arctic regions of the world nearly unrecognisable, dramatically disrupting traditional Inuit and other northern native peoples' way of life …
"This assessment projects the end of the Inuit as a hunting culture," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chairwoman of the group that represents about 155,000 Inuit in the Arctic regions of Canada, Russia, Greenland, and the United States.
The report predicts the depletion of summer sea ice, which will push marine mammals like polar bears, walrus and some seal species into extinction by the middle of this century, Watt-Cloutier told IPS. …
"The Bush administration doesn't believe there's a problem and are behind the delay in the release of the report," said Gordon McBean, an ACIA participant from the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at the University of Western Ontario. "They don't even think they ought to reduce their emissions, period."
At Grist this Friday, Phil Plait writes—
Ice going, humanity: Arctic melting at alarming rates:
| One popular denier claim is that Arctic sea ice extent is higher in recent years than it was in 1989, therefore claims of it melting away are false.
This is so blatantly wrong that it’s hard to believe anyone could make that claim with a straight face. But make it they do, like Lawrence Soloman did in (surprise!) an op-ed in the Financial Post(which, like the Wall Street Journal, is a refuge for denialist claims). Soloman’s silliness is taken apart easily by Tamino on his blog. Harrison Schmitt has made this claim as well. It’s simple cherry-picking your data, and a huge no-no when it comes to real science.
When you look at the average, the trend in the ice, it goes down, down, down. […]
In March 2013, the Arctic ice reached its maximum extent, which was the sixth lowest on record (it naturally fluctuates a bit year to year, but the trend is definitely downward). It drops to its minimum extent in September, but on top of that, over time, the minimum amount itself is shrinking. […]
And it gets yet worse. If you look at the volume of sea ice, that drops even faster than the extent. This terrifying video uses a clever graphic to demonstrate just how much sea ice we lose every year.
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2006—Cheers: Wednesday:
| If I may be so bold as to suggest that yesterday's news sucked…
Wall Street tanked (again), over a thousand more U.S. troops are going into Iraq to help Bush turn more corners, the Pentagon admits the insurgency is going to get worse, Afghanistan is falling apart, the death toll from the Indonesian earthquake is up to nearly six thousand, consumer confidence dropped in May, they didn't find Jimmy Hoffa (dammit...he's still got my watch), home foreclosures are on the rise, there's an investigation underway regarding a massacre of civilians in Iraq by our guys, a major car company is recalling a million vehicles because of faulty steering wheels (enjoy your commute this morning, Toyota owners), the Supreme Court squished federal whistleblowers under its thumb, a brick nearly went through our TV when Bill O'Reilly accused Jack Murtha last night of wanting to "cut and run," plus...
One year after her disappearance, Natalie Holloway astonishingly remains the #1 story in the media universe (now that American Idol has temporarily moved off the front page).
And if that wasn't bad enough, now we learn that global warming is going to cause aworldwide outbreak of mutant poison ivy.
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Tweet of the Day:
#MSNBC Watching @hardball_chris now I understand why some liberals find it hard to watch you program and decide not to
— @LatPoliticalAve via web
On today's
Kagro in the Morning show, "Gun Deaths Since Newtown Now Surpass Number of Americans Killed in Iraq." Surprised? Actually, CDC stats tell us there have been far, far more than that. How many? Listen and find out. Two new #GunFAIL episodes show a divide in how we think of gun danger. Ornstein on the renewed nuclear option fight. Bobby Rush calls Mark Kirk's anti-gang initiative an "elitist white boy solution."
Armando on appointment powers, the "unitary executive" theory and constitutional hardball. Did McCain pose with kidnappers in Syria?
ArchPundit clears up the IL gun law situation. And the
Volokh Conspiracy blog dismisses accusations that AG Holder lied under oath.
High Impact Posts. Top Comments.
