Clueless — ‘Worrisome to Dire’

February 24, 2011

Canadians — what can you do?
From a new poll by two Canadian organizations, the Public Policy Forum and Sustainable Prosperity:

The survey, released Wednesday, found that 80 per cent of Canadians polled said they believe there is solid evidence of global warming, compared to 58 per cent of Americans.

About half the Americans surveyed said they believed scientists were overstating the potential effects of global warming.

Blind and clueless do as the blind and clueless do — US peoples are experiencing first-hand the effects of climate change in this winter’s weather, yet can’t see.

(Illustration found here).

The survey also mentioned politics in the general view of climate change: In the U.S., 69 per cent of Democrats and just 41 per cent of Republicans said they believed the science.
Too much disinformation and negative chatter on the airwaves from the right-wing nut-jobs.

Even as Washington fiddles and the GOP continues to lie through its ass, climate change is still continuing, still bringing destruction — another brick in the wall for the globe’s coral reefs.
From Climate Central yesterday:

According to a new report from the World Resources Institute (WRI), Reefs at Risk Revisited, more than 75 percent of the coral reefs in the Atlantic, including those surrounding Florida, are now threatened by human activities.
Though overfishing is the largest single threat to coral reef ecosystems in the area, marine species are becoming more vulnerable to the effects of climate change and high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, says the report.

“This is a critical time for ocean ecosystems in general, but in particular for coral reefs,” said Lubchenco (NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco), speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
Since the initial Reefs at Risk report, she described the threats to coral reefs as having gone from “worrisome to dire.”

And the function of those reefs: Coral reefs help prevent sediments from washing up and damaging the shoreline. They act as a physical barrier which helps create a healthier, protected coastline habitat. They also sequester carbon dioxide, which helps create an environment that continues to attract marine biodiversity. Coral reefs also have economic benefits for nearby cities and towns. Coral can be harvested for use in medicines and jewelery. Fish and marine plants can be harvested for use in aquariums worldwide. Tourists may also visit to view the spectacular underwater life of coral reefs.

Other than that, and of course, other than their neat, incredible beauty, the reefs are pretty-much worthless.

As the events in Wisconsin reveal, US peoples as a whole do not think as the lying GOP, but still…
From the BBC this morning:

With a majority in the House of Representatives, politicians unconvinced of the case for action on climate change have been able to attack the edifices of climate science and international negotiations in quite dramatic ways.
Budgetary measures passed by the House at the weekend would not only withdraw US funding from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – they would also end financing for the office occupied by Todd Stern, the experienced official who leads US diplomacy within the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) and other fora.

The claims used to back the proposed IPCC cuts are easily countered. Launching his “de-funding” amendment, Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer described the panel as: “…an entity that is fraught with waste and fraud, and engaged in dubious science…”

Even as global warming hurdles toward some unthinkable horror, a few climate zombies can ruin the future for everyone, and I do mean everyone.
There’s no escaping, and the children and grandchildren of all of us will consider this generation as immoral and clueless — beyond worrisome to way-dire.

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