Earth Under the Weather
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Environment, Scratching Sounds, Weather | 2 Comments
As this summer carves its way through the year, any dumb-ass can see something fishy is going on with the planet’s weather systems, like an old, old radiator busting its seams — heat and more heat.
Global warming might be beyond the “tipping point.”
(Illustration found here).
Climate change has always been a serious subject here at Compatible Creatures, a topic seemingly even more horrifying, and scarer, than even stuff like war, the Great Depression, rectal cancer, or John McCain, and carrying with it this unfurling scenario which now can be readily seen by anyone with any kind of walking-around sense — unless you’re in the ilk of Jim Inhofe or any of his kin.
Just in the last three years, from all indications, the environment in which humanity dwells appears to be accelerating much-quicker than anticipated toward some type of near-unlivable condition as witnessed this past week with a report, titled “State of the Climate 2009,” from US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: “When we follow decade-to-decade trends using multiple data sets and independent analyses from around the world, we see clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world,” says Peter Stott, a climate scientists with the UK’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.
Less than a year ago, The Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 reported blowbacks within climate change were moving faster, and quicker than anticipated:
In addition, increased absorption of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by oceans is leading to acidification of seawater faster than expected.
For example, water that can corrode a seashell-making substance is “already welling up along the California coast — decades earlier than existing models predict,” the report said.
Climate change is not THE can to kick further down the road for future generations to deal with, like oil, for instance, which apparently will keep the planet machined-in up for a little while longer, or maybe peak oil is another worm in the apple in the eye of mankind — President Obama was in Detroit on Friday to relish in the financial uptick of US auto makers, never mind the coming years; instead of bailing out the car makers last year, Obama should have started the process to “phase” them out, but that’s too much to ask, huh?
Well, the assholes in the US Congress couldn’t get a climate bill passed this year, despite everything.
The problem, though, was priority — it was either health care or climate change.
And one must remember this about climate change: The situation will soon become horrifyingly and depressingly mega-obvious.
Two years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark:
Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised.
For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived.
These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events.
There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.
Now, financial and health care reform are indeed needed, but next to climate change, neither can hold a waxing candle.
‘Why aren’t they turning?’
Filed Under Cloud gazing | Leave a Comment
In the midst of bad news from many quarters, this latest does make one feel better.
From Wired:
That asteroid is Apophis, a 900-foot asteroid. Calculations released on Christmas Eve 2004 appeared to show that there was a greater than 2 percent chance the asteroid would hit the Earth in 2029.
The asteroid appeared ready to give the Earth its closest shave since astronomers began looking for such things.
It was judged a 4 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale for a short time, the highest rating any near-Earth object has received.
…
Even though the asteroid doesn’t look like it’s going to hit Earth, on April 13, 2029, it will come closer to Earth than any other near-Earth object that we know of.
It will pass just 18,300 miles above the planet’s surface.
A comfort, though slight, is the notion the event isn’t loosely-scheduled for another near-30 years.
And with a real-huge shitload of nefarious situations currently facing the planet, to paraphrase George Carlin’s “Hippy Dippy Weatherman,” don’t sweat that piece of space rock coming our way.
(Illustration found here).
Ghoulish Gall
Filed Under War & Politics | 1 Comment
In one of the most outlandish public elections in recent memory, the government of Afghanistan has re-installed itself on a pile of criminal corruption so putrid even an idiot can smell it a mile away.
Despite all the cuddling, a hard-serious fact remains: “Right now 85 percent of the government is corrupt,” said Ahmed Shah Lumar, a businessman in the southern city of Kandahar. He said bribery, extortion and other corrupt practices extend “from the very small person” in government to the very top.
And US GIs — along with troops from all over the world — are getting blown to bits to keep this pile of shit in office.
(Illustration found here).
And Hamid Karzai, supposedly just re-elected to a joyous second term as Afghan president, has apparently learned the trade-craft of bullshit, memory-lapse gall from a master: George Jr.
If you can’t beat ‘em, lie about it, then throw up a pious smoke-and-mirrors, holier-than-thou stream of consciousness.
From Al Jazeera English just this morning:
“Over the last few days some political and diplomatic circles and propaganda agencies of certain foreign countries have intervened in Afghanistan’s internal affairs by issuing instructions concerning the composition of Afghan government organs and political policy of Afghanistan,” the foreign ministry statement said on Saturday.
“Such instructions have violated respect for Afghanistan’s national sovereignty.”
In the past few days just about everybody that’s anybody has trashed Karzai’s government.
In the words of the UK’s Gordon Brown, who is catching bad flak for the Brits dying in the Afghan killing fields, the war there is bad news: “Sadly, the government of Afghanistan had become a byword for corruption,” Mr. Brown said in a speech to defense experts. “And I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm’s way for a government that does not stand up against corruption.”
And as President Obama contemplates troops increases (or not), he should have some sense, he should think about more than the politics — get the US out of Afghanistan.
The trouble: No one will leave.
The UK’s turd-knuckle Brown in the same breath as the above quote said it for all the bullshit political-talking assholes on the planet: “We cannot, must not and will not walk away.”
Oh, but they will, they surely will, but it won’t be pretty — just ask Alex the Great, (Brown should study his own British history) and the Soviets.
Extreme Saber-Rattling
Filed Under Madness, War & Politics | Leave a Comment
Iran getting nuked — one view of the repercussions…
James Howard Kunstler, author of ‘The Long Emergency,’ describes a nightmare domino effect if Iran is bombed, and what the planet would then face.
From his aptly titled blog, Clusterfuck Nation:
This is a dangerous situation.
I’m not so sure that Israel could launch an effective attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but it might try anyway, especially if a US-backed sanctions effort fails to coalesce quickly.
I’m not sure Israel would seek permission from the US to do this, though the US would certainly be tasked with defending the shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf. Iran might succeed in sinking more than a couple of US ships-of-the-line with sunburn missles and other toys, and this would lead to the bigger danger of oil supplies being choked off to the rest of the world.
The US air response would be impressive, but possibly not effective against hardened targets. The leaders of Iran might exult even if the Iranian people were swept into a maelstrom.
I imagine that what followed would be a very extravagant military frenzy amounting to World War Three, with European air forces and navies dragged in, with Hezbollah and Syria striking back at Israel, India and Pakistan possibly incinerating each other, and mayhem galore among the bystanders in Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan.
There could easily be internal mischief in the UK, France, and Germany from angry immigrant populations, and “sleepers” could work some overdue hoodoo in the USA. I don’t know what Turkey would do, but it could be the biggest beneficiary of a bad regional meltdown, providing the only effective governance what remains in the region.
China and Japan would probably just gape at the spectacle in wonder and nausea from the sidelines as they saw their energy supplies for years-to-come go up in flames.
The G-20 nations would be crippled as global oil supplies were choked off indefinitely.
And if anyone — Iran, or its friends inside the Kingdom — managed to pull off a stunt such as blowing up the Ras Tanura oil terminal — then a darkness will spread across places that were used to being lighted and they will stay dark a long time.
I don’t know if any of this will come to pass, but as I said, tensions have reached a breaking point, including the greater tensions of history, which seem to require periodic release no matter how poignant the Pete Seegar songs are.
It is perhaps, just another prime symptom of “overshoot,” the world’s way of shedding some of the toxic organisms that are making it so unhappy — Gaia in a really bad mood.
(h/t: The Oil Drum).
Read an excerpt of ‘The Long Emergency‘ from the March 2005 issue of Rolling Stone here.