AlterNet: Unavoidable Climate Change: We've Passed the Point of No Return

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Peter Gleick

Unavoidable Climate Change: We've Passed the Point of No Return
How bad it gets depends on how much longer we fail to act and how much longer Congress and others hide behind ignorance, political ideology and religion to deny reality.


November 20, 2010 | It's too late. The world has missed the opportunity to avoid serious, damaging human-induced climate change. For a variety of reasons ranging from ignorance to political ideology to commercial self-interest to inertia to intentional misrepresentations and misdirections on the part of a small number of committed climate deniers, the United States and the rest of the world have waited too long to act to cut the emissions of damaging greenhouse gas pollutants. We are now committed to irreversible long-term and inevitably damaging consequences ranging from rapidly rising sea levels, far greater heat stress and damages, disappearing glaciers and snowpack, more flooding and droughts, and far, far more.

For over two decades, there have only been a few people and groups that have argued against climate change, and very few of these have done so in good faith (though there is no denying that they've been effective). Sometimes they have tried to hide behind scientific "uncertainty" to mask their anti-climate-change arguments. But the fundamental science has long been irrefutable, and so recently, we've seen all pretense of caring about science thrown out the door by elected officials such as Congressman John Shimkus (vice chairman of the Republican Party's Congressional campaign committee and vying to become chair of the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee), who simply rejects climate change by turning to the Bible to refute the science or as justification to ignore it.

"The earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth," Shimkus said. "I believe that's the infallible word of God, and that's the way it's going to be for his creation."

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The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/food/148928/unavoidable_climate_change%3A_we%27ve_passed_the_point_of_no_return

[deminks]

1. That is the meme now from every conservative I hear

"You can't do anything aobut it." Some don't deny it is happening anymore. They just say there is nothing that can be done. Most still deny it is happening. Especially if there is a cold temperature snap. They don't understand climate vs weather. And you can't explain it to them. And you cannot reason with them. I have tried to tell them that there is nothing wrong with being a good steward of the planet, even if they don't believe anything is changing; that being a good steward is being a good Christian. Then I get the deer in the headlight look. Evidently Halliburton didn't include that argument in their talking points.

I blame St. Ronnie among others for this. We were on the right track with carpooling and alternative energies and science. We elected an astroturf monkey actor whose strings were pulled by the corporatists.