Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

"A world in collapse?"

Robert Jensen interviewed by Alex Doherty, New Left Project

By Robert Jensen

Source: New Left Project
Saturday, September 04, 2010

Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas. He is the author of Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity; The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege; and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity, among other works. He spoke to NLP’s Alex Doherty about the threat of environmental catastrophe.

Alex Doherty: You have written that: "To be fully alive today is to live with anguish, not for one’s own condition in the world but for the condition of the world, for a world that is in collapse." Even amongst environmentalists it is rare to describe our situation in such apocalyptic terms. Why do you think it is justified to describe the world as collapsing?

Robert Jensen: Take a look at any measure of the fundamental health of the planetary ecosystem on which we are dependent: topsoil loss, chemical contamination of soil and water, species extinction and reduction in biodiversity, the state of the world’s oceans, unmanageable toxic waste problems, and climate change. Take a look at the data, and the news is bad on every front. And all of this is in the context of the dramatic decline coming in the highly concentrated energy available from oil and natural gas, and the increased climate disruption that will come if we keep burning the still-abundant coal reserves. There are no replacement fuels on the horizon that will allow a smooth transition. These ecological realities will play out in a world structured by a system of nation-states rooted in the grotesque inequality resulting from imperialism and capitalism, all of which is eroding what is left of our collective humanity. “Collapsing” seems like a reasonable description of the world.

That doesn’t mean there’s a cataclysmic end point coming soon, but this is an apocalyptic moment. The word “apocalypse” does not mean “end.” It comes from a Greek word that means “uncovering” or “lifting the veil.” This is an apocalyptic moment because we need to lift the veil and have the courage to look at the world honestly.

AD: Why do you think many leftists shy away from such language when discussing the environment?

RJ: I think not only leftists, but people in general, avoid these realities because reality is so grim. It seems overwhelming to most people, for good reason. So, rather than confront it, people find modes of evasion. One is to deny there’s a reason to worry, which is common throughout the culture. The most common evasive strategy I hear from people on the left is “technological fundamentalism” -- the idea that because we want high-energy/high-tech solutions that will allow us to live in the style to which so many of us have become accustomed, those solutions will be found. That kind of magical thinking is appealing but unrealistic, for two reasons. First, while the human discoveries of the past few centuries are impressive, they have not been on the scale required to correct the course we’re on; we’ve created problems that have grown beyond our capacity to understand and manage. Second, those discoveries were subsidized by fossil-fuel energy that won’t be around much longer, which dramatically limits what we will be able to accomplish through energy-intensive advanced technology. As many people have pointed out, technology is not energy; you don’t replace energy with technology. Technology can make some processes more energy-efficient, but it can’t create energy out of thin air.

I’ve had many left colleagues tell me that they agree with some or all of my analysis, but that “people aren’t ready to hear that yet.” I translate that to mean, “I’m not ready to hear that yet.” I think a lot of leftists displace their own fear of confronting these difficult realities onto “the masses,” when in fact they can’t face it.

The other factor is that truly crazy end-times talk, which comes primarily from reactionary religious sources, leads many people to reflexively dismiss any talk of collapse. So, it’s important to be clear: I’m not predicting the end of world on a specific date. I’m not predicting anything. I’m simply describing what some of us believe to be the most likely trajectory of the high-energy/high-tech society in which we live. And I’m suggesting that we keep this trajectory in mind as we pursue left/feminist critiques of hierarchy and domination, in the hope that more egalitarian and humane models for human organization can help us deal with collapse.

PART 2:


AD: Given the severity of the situation you are describing what are the implications for left activism? Should other forms of activism be abandoned in order to focus on the threat of climate change? How realistic are proposals for alternative economic systems such as green bio-regionalism or participatory economics in the context of climate catastrophe?

RJ: First, I think every political project -- whether it is focused on labor organizing, resistance to white supremacy, women’s rights, anti-war activity -- has to include an ecological component. That doesn’t mean everyone has to shift focus, but I think there is no meaningful politics that doesn’t recognize the fragility of our situation and the likelihood that the most vulnerable people (both in the United States and around the world) are going to bear the brunt of the ecological decline. A responsible left/feminist politics should connect the dots whenever and wherever possible. Here’s one obvious example: U.S. imperial wars, born of a patriarchal system, are waged to support corporate interests in the most crucial energy-producing regions of the world, which are predominantly non-white. Resistance to those wars requires a critique of male dominance, white supremacy, capitalism, and the affluent First-World lifestyles that numb people to the reality that they are morally implicated in these wars. Those wars are dramatically escalating the intensity and potential destructiveness of the coming collapse. Concern for justice and ecological sustainability demands an anti-war and anti-empire politics. There is no way to focus on one aspect of an injustice without understanding these intersections.

Second, more than ever, “let a hundred flowers blossom.” When we know so little about what’s coming, it’s best if people pursue a variety of strategies that they feel drawn to. In Austin, I’m working primarily with one group that advocates for immigrant workers (Workers Defense Project) and another that helps people start worker-owned cooperative businesses (Third Coast Workers for Cooperation). Neither group is focused specifically on the ecological crises, but there’s incredible energy and ideas in these groups, and they create spaces for advancing a coordinated critique of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy, all with an understanding of the ecological stakes. Maybe it’s natural for people to want to believe that they have hit on the solution to a problem, but I believe that the problems are complex beyond our understanding, and it’s not only unlikely that there’s a single solution but there may be no solutions at all -- if by “solution” we mean a way to continue human existence on the planet at its current level. We need experiments on every front that help us imagine new ways of being.

AD: Lately you have been writing about the way people react emotionally to the reality of climate change. Why do you believe that is an important topic? What is your emotional response to humanities current predicament? What reactions have you seen in others?

RJ: It’s not just climate change, of course, but the multiple ecological crises. Anyone who is paying attention is bound to have some kind of emotional response. I think emotions are important because we are emotional animals. It really is that simple. How can we confront the end of the systems that have structured our lives and not have powerful emotional reactions? Yes, we have well-developed rational capacities, but in the end we are animals who feel as much, or more, than we think. And if thinking and feeling are not wholly separate processes but are part of the way people understand the world, it is folly not to pay attention to our emotional reactions. None of this should be confused with the apolitical therapy culture that dominates in the United States. I’m not talking about emotions separate from politics, but the emotions that flow from political engagement.

To borrow a phrase from a friend, I wake up every morning in a state of profound grief. We humans have been given a privileged place in a world that is beautiful beyond description, and we are destroying it and destroying each other. I cope with that by building temporary psychological damns and dikes to hold back that grief. But the emotion comes so powerfully from so many different directions that life feels like a process of constantly patching and moving and rebuilding those damns and dikes. Some of this is intensely personal, but for me the political work is a crucial part of that coping process. If I weren’t politically active, I would lose my mind. The only way I know how to cope is to use some of my energy in collective efforts to try to build something positive.

There is a lot of individual variation in the human species, which means there will be lots of different reactions as the reality of our predicament sets in. I worry that in a society like the United States, where so many have lived for so long with abundance and a sense of entitlement, people won’t be able to face up to the dramatic changes that are inevitable. That could lead people to accept greater levels of hierarchy and authority if political leaders promise to protect that affluence. In that case, people’s inability to deal with the emotions that arise out of awareness of collapse could usher in an era of even more unjust distribution of wealth and resources in an even more violent world.

The only way to combat that is to talk openly about what we see coming and work to create conditions that allow us to rely on the best of our nature, not the worst.

AD: You dismiss the possibility of technological solutions to climate change but given the severity of the crises we are facing do we not have a duty to try everything we can to avert disaster? Shouldn't we be ramping up research into alternate fuels and renewable energy resources? What about geo-engineering as way to avert the worst effects of climate change?

RJ: I don’t dismiss the relevance of advanced technology to sensible policy proposals. I do dismiss the claim that because we want to solve problems with technology we will invent that technology, and that it will be safe and not cause new problems. I reject that because it strikes me as a fantasy that ignores history and diverts us from the reality of the present.

So, yes, we have that duty, and I support serious investment in alternative energy. My concern is that the culture’s technological fundamentalism leaves people vulnerable to scams. The first step is to recognize we are all going to live in a lower-energy world fairly soon, and that means a massive shift in how we live in the First World. There is no replacement for that fossil energy, and we had better come to terms with that. When we don’t recognize that, we are more easily suckered into absurd schemes like the tar sands in Canada, which is an ecological disaster. The same for biofuels and the absurd claim that we can sustainably replace fossil fuels with ethanol, which is also an ecological loser.

Geo-engineering goes a step beyond that, into real insanity. Proposals to manipulate the planetary ecosystem through schemes like putting reflective particles into the atmosphere, or mirrors in space to deflect sunlight, or altering the clouds -- all of them prove that we haven’t learned the most important lesson of the industrial era. We have not learned, as Wes Jackson puts it, that we are far more ignorant than we are knowledgeable. We have a history of imagining that our knowledge is adequate to manage major interventions into the ecosystem, leaving us to face the unintended consequences of those interventions. At this point, there is no rational approach to the ecological crises that doesn’t start with this recognition: We are going to live in a low-energy world that is powered primarily by contemporary sunlight, not the ancient energy of fossil fuels. As a society we are not prepared, in terms of either physical infrastructure or cultural awareness, to deal with that. Anything that further delays coming to terms with this reality is a threat to life on the planet, not a solution.

PART 3:

AD: In a recent talk you said that "I am glad to see the end of most of what we have come to call “the good life,” for it never struck me as all that good, at least not for most people and other living things." In what respects do you think contemporary capitalism has failed to meet the needs of even the most privileged sectors of western societies?

RJ: Capitalism is the most wildly productive economic system in history, but the one thing it cannot produce is meaning. Even more troubling is the way, through its promotion of narcissism and mindless consumption, that capitalism undermines the larger culture’s ability to create real meaning. Virtually all of what is good in society -- solidarity, compassion, creativity, ethics, joy -- comes from outside capitalism, giving the illusion that capitalism is a civilized system. It’s a cliché, but important enough that we sing it over and over: Money can’t buy you love. Capitalism cannot create a healthy human community, and it undermines the aspect of human nature rooted in solidarity and love.

The other obvious failure of capitalism is its contribution to the erosion of the health of the ecosystem. Humans have been drawing down the ecological capital of the planet since the invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, but that process has intensified dramatically in the capitalist/imperialist/industrial era. Our culture is filled with talk about the success of capitalism even though that system degrades our relationships and threatens our existence. That’s an odd definition of success.

AD: Are there any writers on this topic whose work you would like to recommend?

RJ: Wes Jackson is one of my most trusted sources on these issues. Wes is a scientist working in research on sustainable agriculture, but his critique encompasses politics, economics, and culture. His new book, Consulting the Genius of the Place: An Ecological Approach to a New Agriculture, is due out this fall, and I’m looking forward to reading. I think Bill McKibben’s latest book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, is important, though I think his faith in the power of the internet to help us through the transition is dangerously naïve. William Catton’s books Overshoot and Bottleneck have also helped me come to terms with reality.

In addition to the ecological questions, I think we also have to keep focused on the political and cultural questions, about how the existing distribution of wealth and power are serious impediments to meaningful change. That means continuing to think about the predatory nature of empire and capitalism, and the degree to which patriarchy and white supremacy structure our world and undermine our capacity to be fully human.

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Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is the author of All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, (Soft Skull Press, 2009); Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007); The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege (City Lights, 2005); Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang, 2002). Jensen is also co-producer of the documentary film “Abe Osheroff: One Foot in the Grave, the Other Still Dancing,” which chronicles the life and philosophy of the longtime radical activist.

Personally, I do not care much whatever anyone thinks..

Anyone can test this, individually, with the now changing climate -> Stand in the sun whilst sun is shining -> then stand in the sun whilst it is not shining and it is in the clouds.

(..everyone has noticed, at least on our side of the planet where I come from, which is in the northern hemisphere - in Finland -, that it is noticeably warmer these days when the sun is shining, and really the change between hot and cold is somehing, that cannot go unnoticed..)

Now, if the case was, that the overall temperature was changing, the change between warm and cold, would not be so noticeable as it is - when the sun goes into the clouds.

If the overall atmosphere of earth was getting warmer, regardless of what is going on with the sun - the change between cold and warm, when the Sun comes out of the cloud would be equal to what it was before, and not as drastic as it is now -> change between hot & cold (in the northern hemisphere), whilst earlier (in the last years, and nope, this is no placebo, and it can be measured with temperature devices) it was not at all that noticeable.

Surely this is not anymore much a question of faith, nor is it any good for debate - but it simply is.

Just test this out.. If -the change between suns warmth when it is shining, and it going to the clouds- feels the same as years ago, then you must consider I am wrong.. ..but, regardless of what one wants to believe, this is what is happening on the northern hemisphere - and people are currently getting sick, due to the drastic changes in temperature.. (meaning, there is no right clothing for the temperature changes - it can be ice cold, and suddenly amazingly hot)

In the northern hemisphere this means, if it is shining, it is hot like hell in one minute, and on the other, it is cold as... well not heaven, but something opposed to it.

So if it was just the CO2 - the changes (between sun going in and out of the clouds) would not be that drastic.

Does the same thing happen when you just step into the shade?

If a tree falls in the forest... oh never mind..

I was wondering why this thread was in this forum but then it occurred to me. This board is for politics and RELIGION.

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Originally Posted by PomonaCA

I was wondering why this thread was in this forum but then it occurred to me. This board is for politics and RELIGION.

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Climate change [or a more apt phrase: climate chaos] has everything to do with politics. Politicians have the power to address global warming or not. They can act to reduce carbon emissions or not. But therein lies the difficulty.
Politicians serve/aid/assist the powerful oil industry. And it's NOT in the the oil industry's interest to start cutting emissions. In fact I'd argue it's quite irrational. It's very rational to maximize private gain. Very rational. Scary. But rational. Remember that corporations are very rational constructs.

Politicians, you mean the ones with 8x the carbon footprint of the average citizen? If we want to reduce the American carbon impact how about we demand all politicians fly commercial airlines. How about we disconnect Al Gore from the electrical grid, for goodness sakes the moron is using 20x the average citizen's usage. 20-room mansion, eight baths, using more electricity in a month than the average home uses all year.

Sorry, when this is the example the snake oil salesmen set I ain't buying it. Global warming is not a threat, or real. Just look at the actions of the people trying to sell the lie to you.

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Originally Posted by Ben

Climate change [or a more apt phrase: climate chaos] has everything to do with politics. Politicians have the power to address global warming or not. They can act to reduce carbon emissions or not. But therein lies the difficulty.
Politicians serve/aid/assist the powerful oil industry. And it's NOT in the the oil industry's interest to start cutting emissions. In fact I'd argue it's quite irrational. It's very rational to maximize private gain. Very rational. Scary. But rational. Remember that corporations are very rational constructs.

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That's what I'm saying, too. Global Warming believers are a religion. It's their belief and God bless them for that. I believe in God, they believe in Global Warming. Both religions.

Hello again loveburst.

You might consider doing your experiment over the course of a decade on a daily basis (say everyday at noon) with a thermometer & a calorimeter as anyone can do and many have. The results will show you why anecdotal reports of an individuals perception of heat cannot be regarded as evidence. Perception and memory (from year to year or decade to decade) are colored by expectation, predisposition and age. The fact remains that all measurements have shown for nearly a century and continue to show that the flux of solar energy reaching Earth varies from 1321 to 1413 watts per square meter. The variation includes that due to solar activity (the Sunspot cycles, the coronal flares etc.) as well as the variation due to the varying distance from the Earth to the Sun. There is no increase in Solar luminosity that could possibly account for the current warming of our planet.

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Sorry, when this is the example the snake oil salesmen set I ain't buying it.

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__Faldur

Don't buy it from Al Gore then. He's just one politician. Look instead at the scientific literature. Perceptions and memory are also colored by predispositions toward political ideologies (as evidenced by your own failure to remember that global warming was the favored hypothesis in the 1970's). The science is not based on anyone's personal perception of temperature nor anyone's perception of the political winds.

um yeah if the climate is changing its is heading to the snow ball one the hot house version of earth .

according to my information before the last ice age summers started going it to the 90+ range and when the north atlantic convaor stopped we had ice pack formation in about ten years that would make everything north of tennisee unlivable so dun be afaid of global warming when we have the orbital decay senirio to worry about

p.s. i canna speel too gud but dat dun detract from da quality of thought

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p.s. i canna speel too gud but dat dun detract from da quality of thought

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Your readers will be the judge of that.

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Originally Posted by trish

The quotation marks around "scientists" is appropriate here..

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:iagree:

in the 70's we were heading an ice age.........

these days we are heading a global warming.....

today's "scientists" will be proven wrong......again , in few years about their predictions about the global warming.

everything in this planet goes in cycles , including the weather.

Sure, it goes in cycles. But then, so does the enormous spiral in the middle of the Pacific, filled with trash. You've got water shortages all over the world. Everything is polluted, and we have mostly capitalism to thank for it. You can ignore the biosphere changing all you want, but eventually ecology bites everyone in the ass.

Science, baad.

Blind monkey following of bug-eyed Becky the new age prophet, good.

Ugh.

Ya, "Science"–noun
1.
a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.

This not a scientific cause, its faith based. It is a religion like any other, with pretty pictures and stories.

http://oneutah.org/wp-content/upload...en-499x375.jpg

Actually that graph looks pretty much spot on. But I guess following the pretty lil' colors is a difficult task.

Whats 2C amongst friends..

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This not a scientific cause

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What the fuck is a "scientific cause"???? You looked up the noun form of "science" but you have no comprehension of how to use the adjectival form. Events are caused by other events. Events are physical occurrences; they are neither "scientific" nor "faith based." The current climate shift we're experiencing now is caused by a set of events which include the dumping of greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere that obstruct the radiative escape of heat, thereby insulating us and raising the mean global surface temperature. You claim to have posted above (the blue curve) Hansen's 1988 prediction of that temperature rise. It doesn't come anywhere close to the sophistication climate models have achieved today. Today we have a network of satellites that continuously monitor winds speeds, pressure fronts, ocean currents, fluctuations in the jet stream, chemical concentrations, atmospheric opacity in a continuous range of wavelengths etc. etc. Today we have desktop computational power twenty times faster and with a hundred thousand times more memory than the clumsy card programmable mainframes that were available to Hansen. Hansen had the theory and he essentially had an abacus. For the very first attempt at a mathematical model of our modern climate, his doesn't to badly. But of course, no one in the field uses Hansen's model anymore. Almost as soon as it was published climatologists began to factor in the elements ignored by the Hansen model as those elements became better known (through satellite data collection) and amenable to processing (thanks to the ever growing computational power of modern technology). So hey, if you don't like the blue curve, you're not alone. It's old hat. So what's your point? That Hansen should've been able to do better with what he had at the time? Maybe you're saying that had you applied yourself in 1988 you would've produced a model more in line with the actual data, purportedly depicted by the orange curve. If so, then you would have predicted an increase in the mean temperature anomaly of half a degree centigrade over the course of half a century (see the orange curve); i.e. you would've predicted a climate shift commensurate with the greenhouse accumulation of heat over time.

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Hansen had the theory and he essentially had an abacus.

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Oh c'mon, Trish. I'm sure he had a slide rule.

Regardless: Don't confuse the political theology with facts. If bug-eyed Becky says it's true, it's true. Through his magic drawers, he's tuned into the infallible truths of the Angel Macaroni as imparted to the Mormon President through visions. Maybe he has his own too. Who knows? It's just one of the great mysteries that need to be accepted on faith because Becky's blessed. All hail the new prophet.

Teabags are the new KoolAid.

http://cm1.theinsider.com/media/0/63...0.520x388.jpeg

http://thesaloon.net/globalwarmingralph.jpg

Sorry, little Wednesday fun.. Oh hey look a teabag!

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Originally Posted by trish

Your readers will be the judge of that.

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ofcourse they will cause when one can't spell perfectly only the wise and smart can see what is said and the rest will attack because they are animals and know only fight or flight because high thoughts defy there bit world view

That snow outside is what global warming looks like

Unusually cold winters may make you think scientists have got it all wrong. But the data reveal a chilling truth

• http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...ge-Monbiot.jpg
• 
  
  • George Monbiot
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 December 2010 20.30 GMT
  
  http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...he-sno-007.jpg A zebra stands in its snow-covered pen at Whipsnade Zoo, north of London on December 20, 2010 Photograph: Max Nash/AFP/Getty Images

• There were two silent calls, followed by a message left on my voicemail. She had a soft, gentle voice and a mid-Wales accent. "You are a liar, Mr Monbiot. You and James Hansen and all your lying colleagues. I'm going to make you pay back the money my son gave to your causes. It's minus 18C and my pipes have frozen. You liar. Is this your global warming?" She's not going to like the answer, and nor are you. It may be yes.
  There is now strong evidence to suggest that the unusually cold winters of the last two years in the UK are the result of heating elsewhere. With the help of the severe weather analyst John Mason and the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, I've been through as much of the scientific literature as I can lay hands on (see my website for the references). Here's what seems to be happening.
  The global temperature maps published by Nasa present a striking picture. Last month's shows a deep blue splodge over Iceland, Spitsbergen, Scandanavia and the UK, and another over the western US and eastern Pacific. Temperatures in these regions were between 0.5C and 4C colder than the November average from 1951 and 1980. But on either side of these cool blue pools are raging fires of orange, red and maroon: the temperatures in western Greenland, northern Canada and Siberia were between 2C and 10C higher than usual. Nasa's Arctic oscillations map for 3-10 December shows that parts of Baffin Island and central Greenland were 15C warmer than the average for 2002-9. There was a similar pattern last winter. These anomalies appear to be connected.
  The weather we get in UK winters, for example, is strongly linked to the contrasting pressure between the Icelandic low and the Azores high. When there's a big pressure difference the winds come in from the south-west, bringing mild damp weather from the Atlantic. When there's a smaller gradient, air is often able to flow down from the Arctic. High pressure in the icy north last winter, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, blocked the usual pattern and "allowed cold air from the Arctic to penetrate all the way into Europe, eastern China, and Washington DC". Nasa reports that the same thing is happening this winter.
  Sea ice in the Arctic has two main effects on the weather. Because it's white, it bounces back heat from the sun, preventing it from entering the sea. It also creates a barrier between the water and the atmosphere, reducing the amount of heat that escapes from the sea into the air. In the autumns of 2009 and 2010 the coverage of Arctic sea ice was much lower than the long-term average: the second smallest, last month, of any recorded November. The open sea, being darker, absorbed more heat from the sun in the warmer, light months. As it remained clear for longer than usual it also bled more heat into the Arctic atmosphere. This caused higher air pressures, reducing the gradient between the Iceland low and the Azores high.
  So why wasn't this predicted by climate scientists? Actually it was, and we missed it. Obsessed by possible changes to ocean circulation (the Gulf Stream grinding to a halt), we overlooked the effects on atmospheric circulation. A link between summer sea ice in the Arctic and winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere was first proposed in 1914. Close mapping of the relationship dates back to 1990, and has been strengthened by detailed modelling since 2006.
  Will this become the pattern? It's not yet clear. Vladimir Petoukhov of the Potsdam Institute says that the effects of shrinking sea ice "could triple the probability of cold winter extremes in Europe and northern Asia". James Hansen of Nasa counters that seven of the last 10 European winters were warmer than average. There are plenty of other variables: we can't predict the depth of British winters solely by the extent of sea ice.
  I can already hear the howls of execration: now you're claiming that this cooling is the result of warming! Well, yes, it could be. A global warming trend doesn't mean that every region becomes warmer every month. That's what averages are for: they put local events in context. The denial of man-made climate change mutated first into a denial of science in general and then into a denial of basic arithmetic. If it's snowing in Britain, a thousand websites and quite a few newspapers tell us, the planet can't be warming.
  According to Nasa's datasets, the world has just experienced the warmest January to November period since the global record began, 131 years ago; 2010 looks likely to be either the hottest or the equal hottest year. This November was the warmest on record.
  Sod all that, my correspondents insist: just look out of the window. No explanation of the numbers, no description of the North Atlantic oscillation or the Arctic dipole anomaly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Cyclone_Catarina_from_the_ISS_on_March_26_200 4.JPG" class="image"><img alt="Stub icon" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Cyclone_Catarina_from_the_ISS_on_March_26_2004.JPG/40px-Cyclone_Catarina_from_the_ISS_on_March_26_2004.JPG "@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/8/89/Cyclone_Catarina_from_the_ISS_on_March_26_2004.JPG/40px-Cyclone_Catarina_from_the_ISS_on_March_26_2004.JPG, no reminder of current temperatures in other parts of the world, can compete with the observation that there's a foot of snow outside. We are simple, earthy creatures, governed by our senses. What we see and taste and feel overrides analysis. The cold has reason in a deathly grip.

YouTube - Naomi Klein - The Paradox of Crisis

YouTube - Naomi Klein: Addicted to risk

I don't know if global warming is true or not but for argument sake let's say it is true.

The thing that bothers me is that people have treated me like trash all my life. From old men messing with me when I was a teen to the bashers who's attacking put me in the hospital and now make me fear walking the streets at night. And then there are the people who refuse to give me a chance at a decent job, I could do regular work but they never give me a chance. And now these same people are telling me to save energy so that their offspring can have a better future. i say fuck 'em, I don't care if their childrens children live in a Mad Maxx society,,, they made my life hell let them have a taste of the same.

I don't debate whether global warming is true or not,,, i just don't care. Let the earth rot for all I care.

Wow the early ice age was brought by carbon emission's.Its a swindle a carbon swindle good for the rich uni types to rip off the workers

global climate change is happening, but because the way the sun is acting it would have happened anyway, no matter what they did to the atmosphere...

Nonsense. The solar constant (the flux of solar energy striking our planet) has been relatively constant (1.366 +/- 0.04 kW per sq. meter) since it [has] first been measured in the early nineteenth century. For nearly twelve years the SOHO observatory, located at the Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun, has been monitoring particle flux, energy flux, magnetic field strength etc. etc. and over that time detected no significant increases in solar activity. The quack theory that the Sun is somehow driving climate change throughout the solar system is just that, a quack theory. The current climate imbalance on Earth is due in part to the unlocking [of] vast tonnages of once fossilized carbon dioxide and exhausting it into the atmosphere effectively creating a one way blanket that allows light energy from the Sun through to the Earth's surface where it degrades into heat energy which is then trapped beneath the one way blanket. The changes we're experiencing are characteristic of a climate seeking a new equilibrium because of a persistent energy imbalance.

Humans definitely played a role in getting this "ball rolling." Frankly, I think half the world's fossilized carbon dioxide is already out of the bag and there's little hope of getting it back in. Carbon taxes, if they work at all, are only designed to slow the process of letting the rest of our fossilized carbon "out of the bag" and into the atmosphere. I don't have much hope for the efficacy of carbon taxes or carbon trading. Moreover, the Earth's climate is already in motion...that's a lot of inertia to counter. The Earth's climate is definitely changing, and it's not the Sun's fault. It started with the industrial age. To be fair, in the mid nineteenth century no one suspected the Earth could be damaged in any way by mere human beings. The oceans were thought to be too big to pollute, the frontiers to[o] vast to tame and climate was the province of God. Today, we're the gods. Individually, we know how to plan and think ahead. Our forms of government generally cannot do the same. We're inadvertently terraforming the planet and I'm afraid w[e']ll just have to live or die with the consequences.

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Originally Posted by Yvonne183

I don't know if global warming is true or not but for argument sake let's say it is true.

The thing that bothers me is that people have treated me like trash all my life. From old men messing with me when I was a teen to the bashers who's attacking put me in the hospital and now make me fear walking the streets at night. And then there are the people who refuse to give me a chance at a decent job, I could do regular work but they never give me a chance. And now these same people are telling me to save energy so that their offspring can have a better future. i say fuck 'em, I don't care if their childrens children live in a Mad Maxx society,,, they made my life hell let them have a taste of the same.

I don't debate whether global warming is true or not,,, i just don't care. Let the earth rot for all I care.

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The planet is fine, as George Carlin pointed out. (It's a fantastic clip.) There is nothing wrong with the planet. The people, however, are fucked -- ha! ha!
There is the little or big (depending on your view) thing about: future generations. I think as human beings we should have concern about future generations. And children born today bear no responsibility for the way the planet is being destroyed.
The responsibility rests with the institutions of government and corporations. AND FOR OIL COMPANIES: it is AN INSTITUTIONAL IMPERATIVE to destroy the planet.
The CEO of Exxon-Mobil Rex Tillerson is REQUIRED by law to maximize investor return. By law. If he doesn't do that he can be sued. So, that requires the utter trashing of the planet. Again, it is an institutional imperative to destroy the planet. Core changes come when we change the institutional structure of corporations. I mean, now we have to and should regulate the hell out of corporations.
(The activist and writer Helen Caldicott said she isn't really concerned about people. What she cares about are birds, dolphins, tigers and all other animals.
And, well, I mean, look at how we treat animals. Ain't very good. I think in the future, through, say, ethical enlightenment, we'll all become vegetarians.)

YouTube - George Carlin - Saving the Planet

that Carlin Clip is classic. It's us in a nutshell...

Fools there is always climate change, always will be.Its just the latest boogie man made up by the left and and their brought and paid for scientists

Carlin is amusing but misses some crucial points that relate to conservation and survival strategies: the cyclone that hit Burman [Myanmar] a few years ago caused excessive damage because of mangrove forest clearance in coastal regions: redressing this damaging alteration to the environment would make sense and I don't even know if left alone the 'natural' processes of the planet would restore the mangroves.

Ben, your comment about Exxon is hysterical nonsense-the company is not trashing the planet. Do you really think that among its 75,000 employees worldwide nobody cares about the environment they live in and share with you and me? Greater environemntal awareness has been a political factor now since the 1960s, it might not 'save the planet', but I have seen bicycle paths in the Netherlands and China, and they work...

Climate change hits Mars

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1720024.ece

http://www.discoverynews.org/manbearpig.jpg

Mars has a relatively well studied climate, going back to measurements made by Viking, and continued with the current series of orbiters, such as the Mars Global Surveyor. Complementing the measurements, NASA has a Mars General Circulation Model (GCM) based at NASA Ames. (NB. There is a good “general reader” review of modeling the Martian atmosphere by Stephen R Lewis in Astronomy and Geophysics, volume 44 issue 4. pages 6-14.) Globally, the mean temperature of the Martian atmosphere is particularly sensitive to the strength and duration of hemispheric dust storms, (see for example here and here). Large scale dust storms change the atmospheric opacity and convection; as always when comparing mean temperatures, the altitude at which the measurement is made matters, but to the extent it is sensible to speak of a mean temperature for Mars, the evidence is for significant cooling from the 1970′s, when Viking made measurements, compared to current temperatures. However, this is essentially due to large scale dust storms that were common back then, compared to a lower level of storminess now. The mean temperature on Mars, averaged over the Martian year can change by many degrees from year to year, depending on how active large scale dust storms are.
In 2001, Malin et al published a short article in Science (subscription required) discussing MGS data showing a rapid shrinkage of the South Polar Cap. Recently, the MGS team had a press release discussing more recent data showing the trend had continued. MGS 2001 press release MGS 2005 press release. The shrinkage of the Martian South Polar Cap is almost certainly a regional climate change, and is not any indication of global warming trends in the Martian atmosphere. Colaprete et al in Nature 2005 (subscription required) showed, using the Mars GCM, that the south polar climate is unstable due to the peculiar topography near the pole, and the current configuration is on the instability border; we therefore expect to see rapid changes in ice cover as the regional climate transits between the unstable states.
Thus inferring global warming from a 3 Martian year regional trend is unwarranted. The observed regional changes in south polar ice cover are almost certainly due to a regional climate transition, not a global phenomenon, and are demonstrably unrelated to external forcing. There is a slight irony in people rushing to claim that the glacier changes on Mars are a sure sign of global warming, while not being swayed by the much more persuasive analogous phenomena here on Earth…

YouTube - Rep. John Shimkus: God decides when the "earth will end"

YouTube - Shimkus: 'Corporate Titans Are My Friends'

I AM FUCKING PISSED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING! There I said it! Shit it's fucking cold outside.