It's Global Warming, Stupid

[highplainsdem]

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek

Yes, yes, it’s unsophisticated to blame any given storm on climate change. Men and women in white lab coats tell us—and they’re right—that many factors contribute to each severe weather episode. Climate deniers exploit scientific complexity to avoid any discussion at all.

Clarity, however, is not beyond reach. Hurricane Sandy demands it: At least 40 U.S. deaths. Economic losses expected to climb as high as $50 billion. Eight million homes without power. Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated. More than 15,000 flights grounded. Factories, stores, and hospitals shut. Lower Manhattan dark, silent, and underwater.

An unscientific survey of the social networking literature on Sandy reveals an illuminating tweet (you read that correctly) from Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. On Oct. 29, Foley thumbed thusly: “Would this kind of storm happen without climate change? Yes. Fueled by many factors. Is storm stronger because of climate change? Yes.” Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund (and former deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek), offers a baseball analogy: “We can’t say that steroids caused any one home run by Barry Bonds, but steroids sure helped him hit more and hit them farther. Now we have weather on steroids.”

In an Oct. 30 blog post, Mark Fischetti of Scientific American took a spin through Ph.D.-land and found more and more credentialed experts willing to shrug off the climate caveats. The broadening consensus: “Climate change amps up other basic factors that contribute to big storms. For example, the oceans have warmed, providing more energy for storms. And the Earth’s atmosphere has warmed, so it retains more moisture, which is drawn into storms and is then dumped on us.” Even those of us who are science-phobic can get the gist of that.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-01/its-global-warming-stupid

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This is their cover story this week -- the Businessweek cover is shown in this New York Observer story:

http://observer.com/2012/11/bloomberg-businessweek-cover-its-global-warming-stupid/

Bloomberg Businessweek, the magazine known for its provocative and striking covers, has dropped another one today: “IT’S GLOBAL WARMING, STUPID,” reads the (huge) text, with an illustration of a flooded city street after Hurricane Sandy.

[Berlum]

1. "Duh. That's, um, not what Rush and Glenn and Hannity say." - Suckered Republican Voters

"So we are going to disregard our own thoughts, and science, and just bend over and TAKE IT from the cabal of overpaid chickenhawk Republican propaganda pimps." - Suckered Republican voters

[meeshrox]

2. K&R n/t

[global1]

3. How Many More Flooded U.S. Cities Is It Going To Take Before They Acknowledge Global Climate Change?

First New Orleans, then Nashville, now towns in New Jersey and even NYC sustained flood damage. What's it going to take for them to realize something really bad is going down?

[fleur-de-lisa]

5. Yes! What you said ^^^ !!! n/t

[limpyhobbler]

6. Yeah. Plus don't forget the June 2012 Mid-Atlantic and Midwest derecho

We were without power for 10 days.

The June 2012 Mid-Atlantic and Midwest derecho was one of the most destructive and deadly fast-moving severe thunderstorm complexes in North American history. The progressive derecho tracked across a large section of the Midwestern United States and across the central Appalachians into the Mid-Atlantic States on the afternoon and evening of June 29, 2012, and into the early morning of June 30, 2012. It resulted in 22 deaths, widespread damage and millions of power outages across the entire affected region. The storm prompted the issuance of four separate severe thunderstorm watches by the Storm Prediction Center. A second storm in the late afternoon caused another watch to be issued across Iowa and Illinois.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2012_North_American_derecho#Ohio

[antigone382]

8. Don't forget Vermont. Not a major city but still victim to some freakish weather. n/t

[limpyhobbler]

4. we should have more clean energy like wind and solar right away nt.

[dipsydoodle]

7. Doesn't change the fact

that the coinciding full moon increased the size of the surge by c. 50%.

[sarcasmo]

9. In the future you won't be able to get insurance on property with in 20 miles of the coast.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Something is wrong with "political will" when even after dropping 10 points, two thirds

of the American People say there is solid evidence the earth is getting warmer and our nation's leadership not to mention the "fourth estate" barely broach the subject much less take action!

Where to get the money? Rothkopf proposed shifting funds from post-Sept. 11 bureaucratic leviathans such as the Department of Homeland Security, which he alleges is shot through with waste. In truth, what’s lacking in America’s approach to climate change is not the resources to act but the political will to do so. A Pew Research Center poll conducted in October found that two-thirds of Americans say there is “solid evidence” the earth is getting warmer. That’s down 10 points since 2006. Among Republicans, more than half say it’s either not a serious problem or not a problem at all.

That also brings up the question as to what did they do when it was up 10 points and three quarters of the American People believed it!?

How much support does this critical issue require before the corporate media stay with it, stick with it, and relentlessly cover the damn thing until either the politicians grow the balls/ovaries necessary to pass major policies taking us off our current mass suicidal path to perdition or until opposing pretenders are voted out of office!?

Thanks for the thread, highplainsdem.

[ErikJ]

11. “Our cover story this week may generate controversy,.. But only among the stupid."

Bloomberg Businessweek, the magazine known for its provocative and striking covers, has dropped another one today: “IT’S GLOBAL WARMING, STUPID,” reads the (huge) text, with an illustration of a flooded city street after Hurricane Sandy.

“Our cover story this week may generate controversy,” wrote editor Josh Tyrangiel on Twitter. “But only among the stupid.”

[Skittles]

12. "weather on steroids"

it's a good analogy