Letter: Wake-up call / LJWorld.com

Archive for Saturday, November 10, 2012

Letter: Wake-up call

By Rebecca Ryan, Lawrence

November 10, 2012

To the editor:

Hurricane Sandy’s devastation of the East Coast of the United States is now followed by a early season Nor’easter, dumping up to a foot of snow on the already devastated area. The news media, the meteorologists, and our leaders in government all need to refocus attention on these severe weather phenomenon. Climate models predict that events such as Hurricane Sandy, the current Nor’easter, Western wildfires, insect infestations, and the drought here in the Midwest, will continue to occur with increased frequency and intensity as the levels of carbon increase in our atmosphere.

We need a solution now to address this troubling trend. Citizens’ Climate Lobby (citizensclimatelobby.org), a non-profit group dedicated to addressing the human-based causes of global climate change, proposes a carbon fee and dividend as a viable way to turn this ship around.

I would suggest that we all do what we can to educate ourselves on this matter and that we ask our elected representatives to back just such an initiative. Hurricane Sandy is only the latest in a series of wake-up calls. There is no time to lose. We need to act now.

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msezdsit 7 months, 1 week ago

In complete irony, I was watching fox (very briefly) and the pundits are complaining about how poorly obama has been about helping the recovery from the northeast's storms.They are complaining about how much it is hurting the businesses and the economy. Given that Fox has supported the candidates that push for the dismantlement of FIMA and generally against government involvement, they now choose to complain about the lack of government involvement. Given that Fox took President Obama's comment stating that "if you have a business and you use the roads and bridges, you didn't build that" and then changed his comment to say something he didn't say but what Fox said, "if you have a business, you didn't build that" I find it ironic that they now complain that the government is not moving fast enough to repair the infrastructure these businesses need to function.

And, in complete irony, Fox is against any and every discussion of global temperature increases while attacking the government's slow response to the problems that global temperature rises can predictably cause. And people listen to Fox talking out of both sides of their mouths.

Pitty the poor Fox junkies that are to smitten to be able see through fox's bs. They actually believe them.

Liberty275 7 months, 1 week ago

That's what they get for picking a leader and not an employee.

just_another_bozo_on_this_bus 7 months, 1 week ago

The damage from Sandy is now estimated at $50 billion. That'd by a lot of wind turbines and solar panels, and r&d on how to end the fossil-fuel addiction.

just_another_bozo_on_this_bus 7 months, 1 week ago

Well that was an idiotic comment-- likely soon to disappear. Again.

Liberty275 7 months, 1 week ago

Hello Sybil, Is anyone else in there with you?

jafs 7 months, 1 week ago

The EPA's job and mission is to protect the environment.

That's why it's called the "Environmental Protection Agency".

just_another_bozo_on_this_bus 7 months, 1 week ago

But only lazy socialists care about the quality of the air they breathe and the water they drink, or whether the way we conduct our society and economy will kill us off by the billions.

repaste 7 months, 1 week ago

I predict this idiot_9 will not be around long. Like the name though.

parrothead8 7 months, 1 week ago

The EPA didn't "blow the coal/electricity industry into oblivion." The free market did. Coal is struggling because there are cheaper, cleaner, more reliable options...namely natural gas.

LesBlevins 7 months, 1 week ago

Solutions to massive carbon emissions into the atmosphere exist now and more are available. What we need is deployment of those solutions and even more innovative solutions that enable powering society less on emissions of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere but powering society more on extraction of carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it in the soils to enhance water retention and thus crop production. One such solution has been invented, patented and developed here in Lawrence but is still being ignored by Lawrence leaders, our Republican leader in Topeka, and the Lawrence Journal World editors and staff writers who don’t even want the public to know about it because of their close ties to the fossil fuels, landfilling and utility industries which contribute to their political party of choice.

just_another_bozo_on_this_bus 7 months, 1 week ago

Playing whackamole this morning?

FlintlockRifle 7 months, 1 week ago

The "o" will fix everything in the next four years, he promised??? He even shed a """tear for you""

Liberty275 7 months, 1 week ago

"We need a solution now to address this troubling trend."

Fine. Go find whatever solution you want. The have a pillow fight.

Just don't expect everyone else to pay for you adventure.

bearded_gnome 7 months, 1 week ago

becky, shame on you! people in several amrican states are suffering seerely, many have died if this had been a republican president the media would be screaming from the housetops.
there is human pain and misery and the best you can do is put up your slimey little idea for a regressive carbon tax?

shame on you.

the earth stopped warming in the '90s. nasa scientists and astronauts tell us that manmade global warming is a myth.

it is properly called "the greatest hoax" see the book of that name. the data has been cooked. the earth has been warmer than this in the past.

as to hurricane Sandy: the Atlantic is warm and the pacific is cooler, as in the '50s, but of course you are an historical illiterate, a necessity to believe in global warming/climatechange/climatedestruction or whatever the newest monicker is.

new york has been hit by hurricanes before.

now, please turn your efforts to helping those who are suffering, and not to adding a tax that will hurt the poor, kill jobs, ruin the american economy, etc. thanks.

cg22165 7 months, 1 week ago

The earth is receiving about 4 Hiroshima-sized a-bombs more than it is giving off, per second. This can be measured. So, unless you have a problem with the law of conservation of energy...

You are attempting to go down the up escalator, and NASA scientists have told you so. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/11/short-term-trends-another-proxy-fight/

As a side note: Why is it that you deniers claim that the "climategate" emails prove that the data from the Hadley Climate Research Unit (HADCRUT3|4) is fudged, but you rely on it exclusively on you quest for a 'pause' in warming? Does it have anything to do with the fact that that data set reads cooler than any other?

The only ones saying that getting off of our addition to fossil fuels will ruin the economy are the ones selling fossil fuel energy, and the ones they have successfully scared into believing them.

Please go get a clue, and come back when you are prepared to deal with reality.

cg22165 7 months, 1 week ago

BTW, if you think that astronauts are climate scientists, you are very confused.

cait48 7 months, 1 week ago

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2012/nov/10/opinion-gop-should-do-conservatism-better/#c2182383
This a crosspost from another thread.
Given the effects of the drought last summer, I'd say it's already come.
Most people on this forum know that I very recently moved from Kansas (where I lived most of my life) to SE Tennessee on the eastern side of the Appalachian mountains. (Literally. I live at the base of Lookout Mountain. I walk out my front door and it smacks me in the face.) In mid October, people here woke up and walked out their front doors into something they had never seen before; a strange haze hanging over the Tennessee Valley. Phone calls to local meteorologists sent them scrambling to NOAA and we got an answer. It was dust. Specifically, dust from the Midwest picked up by the jet stream, carried eastward across the mountains and dumped on us. There were a small handful of people old enough to have seen it before. From the Dust Bowl days of the Depression.
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/oct/19/haze-over-city-probably-dust-storm-oklahoma/

by cait48

bballwizard 7 months, 1 week ago

so global climage change is responsible for Sandy???? What caused the dust bowl???? global climate change??? To talk so matter of fact that global change is causing these disasters is dumb founding to me. Whats your proof? Everything goes in cycles and can you prove that this is not just a cycle. If you build stuff right on the ocean front you are pretty assured you are going to experience a Tsumani or a Hurricane. Show me proof that our addiction to oil is causing climate change and i will listen but until then I am in favour of both alternative energy and fossil feuls.

cg22165 7 months, 1 week ago

Fires occurred before arsonists existed; therefore, there arsonists do not set fires. Is that your point?

Weather is a product of energy; our activities have increased the amount of energy in the system, and also changed its distribution. Your inability to understand that does not mean it is not true.

Liberty275 7 months, 1 week ago

Ask them about the glaciers that used to cover NE kansas and ask them how many campfires it took to drive them back to Canada where they belong.

LarryNative 7 months, 1 week ago

I would ask that all climate change fighters unite today and stop using electricity that is not carbon emission friendly. If your house is using the local power plant, turn it off. Do not drive your car unless it is a non carbon emitting engine. The answer is to start at home. Join me today and stop using carbon emitting power sources. If you are using the power grid, you are the problem.