Wednesday, June 27th, 2007
House passes bill affirming global warming exists
Reuters (WASHINGTON) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, aiming to put an end to the debate over whether global warming is actually occurring, passed legislation recognizing the “reality†of climate change and providing money to work on the problem.
By a vote of 272-155, the House approved an environmental funding bill for the fiscal year starting October 1 that would increase federal investments in basic research on climate change and establish a new commission to review scientific questions that need to be addressed.
The White House has threatened a veto of the $27.6 billion bill because its overall spending would exceed President George W. Bush’s request by about $2 billion. The Senate has not yet debated the bill.
The bill also would require oil companies to renegotiate faulty drilling contracts issued by the government in 1998 and 1999 that have allowed them to avoid paying billions in royalties, or be barred from receiving any new leases to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
The White House “strongly opposes†the provision, saying it could produce legal challenges that might delay future lease sales and would set a bad precedent coming nearly a decade after the government signed the contracts.
By inserting a declaration in the bill that climate change is a “reality,†the Democratic-controlled House was trying to move U.S. policy-makers beyond a debate, long stimulated by the Bush administration, over whether there was scientific proof that global warming really is occurring.
A leading promoter of that debate has been Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe, who has referred to global warming as a “hoax.†He chaired the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee until Republicans lost control of Congress this year.
Take Me Back Tuesday: GLOBAL WARMING CORRAL
NOT JUST HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AS DESCRIBED ABOVE BUT ANOTHER VERY IMPORTANT REPUBLICAN SENATOR...SENATOR JOHN WARNER OF VIRGINIA...
HEY PML: WHAT DO YOU KNOW THAT THEY DONT?
Climate Legislation at Last?
What do you get when a longtime champion of the environment and a respected Republican voice on both the economy and national security join forces in the Senate to write a climate change bill? A real opportunity for bipartisan action on global warming.
On Wednesday, Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman and Virginia Republican John Warner announced a groundbreaking commitment to develop a comprehensive greenhouse gas cap and trade bill. They intend to bring it to a vote in their panel on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee before the end of July.
A pile of climate bills have already been introduced in the Congress this year - why is this announcement such big news?
These two senators have a track record of seeking practical solutions to difficult problems, and their colleagues in the Senate will be looking to them for a sensible approach to fixing the climate problem. Lieberman will set a high bar for environmental protection, and Warner will ensure the bill helps the climate without weakening the economy. That means a bill that can win broad support on both sides of the aisle.
Their partnership also underscores the growing recognition that climate change is an issue of national security. Lieberman and Warner hold senior posts on the Senate's homeland security and armed services panels, and both understand the security threats global warming poses at home and abroad. As Warner said on Wednesday, "In my 28 years in the Senate, I have focused above all on issues of national security, and I see the problem of climate change as fitting within that focus."
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer called the announcement a "critical milestone" for her committee's efforts to pass a comprehensive climate change bill.
HEY PML: WHAT DO YOU KNOW THAT THEY DONT?
Climate Legislation at Last?
What do you get when a longtime champion of the environment and a respected Republican voice on both the economy and national security join forces in the Senate to write a climate change bill? A real opportunity for bipartisan action on global warming.
On Wednesday, Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman and Virginia Republican John Warner announced a groundbreaking commitment to develop a comprehensive greenhouse gas cap and trade bill. They intend to bring it to a vote in their panel on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee before the end of July.
A pile of climate bills have already been introduced in the Congress this year - why is this announcement such big news?
These two senators have a track record of seeking practical solutions to difficult problems, and their colleagues in the Senate will be looking to them for a sensible approach to fixing the climate problem. Lieberman will set a high bar for environmental protection, and Warner will ensure the bill helps the climate without weakening the economy. That means a bill that can win broad support on both sides of the aisle.
Their partnership also underscores the growing recognition that climate change is an issue of national security. Lieberman and Warner hold senior posts on the Senate's homeland security and armed services panels, and both understand the security threats global warming poses at home and abroad. As Warner said on Wednesday, "In my 28 years in the Senate, I have focused above all on issues of national security, and I see the problem of climate change as fitting within that focus."
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer called the announcement a "critical milestone" for her committee's efforts to pass a comprehensive climate change bill.
-
Po Monkey Lounger
- Duck South Addict
- Posts: 5975
- Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2001 12:01 am
- Location: Sharby Creek
Maybe Congress should read this: 
Oldest DNA ever recovered shows warmer planet:
Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said Thursday the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed.
DNA of trees, plants and insects including butterflies and spiders from beneath the southern Greenland glacier was estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest.
That contrasts sharply with the prevailing view that a lush forest of this kind could only have existed in Greenland as recently as 2.4 million years ago, according to a summary of the study, which is published Thursday in the journal Science.
The samples suggest the temperature probably reached 10 degrees C (50 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer and -17 C (1 F) in the winter.
They also indicated that during the last period between ice ages, 116,000-130,000 years ago, when temperatures were on average 5 C (9 F) higher than now, the glaciers on Greenland did not completely melt away.
"These findings allow us to make a more accurate environmental reconstruction of the time period from which these samples were taken," said Martin Sharp, a glaciologist at the University of Alberta, Canada, and a co-author of the paper.
"What we've learned is that this part of the world was significantly warmer than most people thought."
In a separate paper, also published in Science, European experts said they had analysed the world's deepest ice core, enabling them to reconstruct patterns of warming and glaciation over the past 800,000 years.
The 3,260-metre (10,595-feet) core was drilled into the East Antarctica icesheet at the Franco-Italian base, Dome C. The drillers, gathered in a venture called the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) stopped just 15 metres (48.75 feet) short of the bedrock.
Using traces of the hydrogen isotope deuterium in air bubbles trapped in the ice layers, the scientists built a record of greenhouse-gas concentrations over the aeons, which in turn provides a record of temperature.
They found the temperature varied widely, by as much as 15 C (27 F) over the 800,000 years. In the last Ice Age, which ended around 11,000 years ago, the temperature was 10 C (18 F) lower than today. The EPICA team had previously analysed the Dome C core to a depth equivalent to 650,000 years ago.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whatever could this mean?
Oldest DNA ever recovered shows warmer planet:
Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said Thursday the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed.
DNA of trees, plants and insects including butterflies and spiders from beneath the southern Greenland glacier was estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest.
That contrasts sharply with the prevailing view that a lush forest of this kind could only have existed in Greenland as recently as 2.4 million years ago, according to a summary of the study, which is published Thursday in the journal Science.
The samples suggest the temperature probably reached 10 degrees C (50 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer and -17 C (1 F) in the winter.
They also indicated that during the last period between ice ages, 116,000-130,000 years ago, when temperatures were on average 5 C (9 F) higher than now, the glaciers on Greenland did not completely melt away.
"These findings allow us to make a more accurate environmental reconstruction of the time period from which these samples were taken," said Martin Sharp, a glaciologist at the University of Alberta, Canada, and a co-author of the paper.
"What we've learned is that this part of the world was significantly warmer than most people thought."
In a separate paper, also published in Science, European experts said they had analysed the world's deepest ice core, enabling them to reconstruct patterns of warming and glaciation over the past 800,000 years.
The 3,260-metre (10,595-feet) core was drilled into the East Antarctica icesheet at the Franco-Italian base, Dome C. The drillers, gathered in a venture called the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) stopped just 15 metres (48.75 feet) short of the bedrock.
Using traces of the hydrogen isotope deuterium in air bubbles trapped in the ice layers, the scientists built a record of greenhouse-gas concentrations over the aeons, which in turn provides a record of temperature.
They found the temperature varied widely, by as much as 15 C (27 F) over the 800,000 years. In the last Ice Age, which ended around 11,000 years ago, the temperature was 10 C (18 F) lower than today. The EPICA team had previously analysed the Dome C core to a depth equivalent to 650,000 years ago.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whatever could this mean?
-
rebelduckaholic
- Duck South Addict
- Posts: 3222
- Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2002 1:01 am
- Location: Oxford
-
Bullreds & Greenheads
- Veteran
- Posts: 306
- Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 12:50 am
- Location: Near Ole Ross's Rez
FYI...This isnt about changing anybody's mind...It's about getting information out there on the good, 'ol World Wide Web so surfers/searchers can find the facts they need to dispute the naysayers...I assure you that if you read very post in this thread, you wil get an excellent understanding of the reality of GW and the distortions, the propaganda of those trying to deny it...
This issue is reaching critical mass and will take a major step forward today with the Live Earth concerts...And the fact remains, that 15 years after the Kyoto Conference of the Parties (COP) in 1992, no credible scientific study or studies have disproved that the Earth is gettng warmer and that human emissions are a large reason why, whereas many, many studies have supported the hypothesis that human emissions of CO2 and other GHG are the overriding factor in climate change.
It's also about getting another sense, another look at the value system of hunters...At least as far as MSD is concerned, it aint pretty...Hunters seem to have a "leave me alone and let me hunt" attitude that indicates complete obliviousness to the external factors that could end our sport or at the very least, drive the price up so high that only the very wealthy can afford it as in Europe. The effect of corn prices on farmland values and likely effects on CRP/WRP land going back into production are simple examples. The loss of 5000 acres of day to development throughout the lower 48 is another example. The impact of GW on migratory bird routes is another example. Hunters sit on the sidelines - or buy the conservative con job on these issues- at our own risk. To their credit some hunter/conservation groups, such as DU, DW, NWF, are engaged in these issues but they do so with a majority of their members neutral at best.
But hey, dont worry about it. There are only 6BB lives at stake and history has shown us that the humans whom have evolved in warmer climates are more advanced, more peaceful, more civilized, than those whom have evolved in cooler climates so things will be just peachy when all of us spend more of our lives in warmer climates.
Think about that a minute. Think about how none of the world's problems erupt in the parts of the world closest to the equator or how none of the people that grow up in that part of the world, leave their homes and then go blow up buildings with jetliners, start gang wars, get roped into radical movements, etc...
Bottomline: Humans- as a mammal- need more oxygen and less CO2 in their brains. Because of human emissions of CO2, there is more CO2 in our air than at anytime in the last 2MM-30MM years. Not good.
This issue is reaching critical mass and will take a major step forward today with the Live Earth concerts...And the fact remains, that 15 years after the Kyoto Conference of the Parties (COP) in 1992, no credible scientific study or studies have disproved that the Earth is gettng warmer and that human emissions are a large reason why, whereas many, many studies have supported the hypothesis that human emissions of CO2 and other GHG are the overriding factor in climate change.
It's also about getting another sense, another look at the value system of hunters...At least as far as MSD is concerned, it aint pretty...Hunters seem to have a "leave me alone and let me hunt" attitude that indicates complete obliviousness to the external factors that could end our sport or at the very least, drive the price up so high that only the very wealthy can afford it as in Europe. The effect of corn prices on farmland values and likely effects on CRP/WRP land going back into production are simple examples. The loss of 5000 acres of day to development throughout the lower 48 is another example. The impact of GW on migratory bird routes is another example. Hunters sit on the sidelines - or buy the conservative con job on these issues- at our own risk. To their credit some hunter/conservation groups, such as DU, DW, NWF, are engaged in these issues but they do so with a majority of their members neutral at best.
But hey, dont worry about it. There are only 6BB lives at stake and history has shown us that the humans whom have evolved in warmer climates are more advanced, more peaceful, more civilized, than those whom have evolved in cooler climates so things will be just peachy when all of us spend more of our lives in warmer climates.
Think about that a minute. Think about how none of the world's problems erupt in the parts of the world closest to the equator or how none of the people that grow up in that part of the world, leave their homes and then go blow up buildings with jetliners, start gang wars, get roped into radical movements, etc...
Bottomline: Humans- as a mammal- need more oxygen and less CO2 in their brains. Because of human emissions of CO2, there is more CO2 in our air than at anytime in the last 2MM-30MM years. Not good.
-
JJ McGuire
- Veteran
- Posts: 282
- Joined: Tue Jun 22, 2004 5:26 am
- Location: Chester Springs, PA
- Contact:
Hammer wrote:But hey, dont worry about it. There are only 6BB lives at stake and history has shown us that the humans whom have evolved in warmer climates are more advanced, more peaceful, more civilized, than those whom have evolved in cooler climates so things will be just peachy when all of us spend more of our lives in warmer climates.
Think about that a minute. Think about how none of the world's problems erupt in the parts of the world closest to the equator or how none of the people that grow up in that part of the world, leave their homes and then go blow up buildings with jetliners, start gang wars, get roped into radical movements, etc...
Colombia, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.... More advanced, more peaceful, and more civilized? As a mammal I don't think your brain is getting enough oxygen.
deltadukman: "We may not agree on everything, but we all like t!tties"
Uurrrghh...I was being facetious, you know, smart aleck...Kind of an Oscar Wilde type of thing...
The point is obviously that humans who have evolved closer to the equator rather than further away from it, have repeatedly shown less ability to adapt to modern life...That problem will get worse as things heat up and the atmosphere gets higher and higher percentages of CO2. I personally believe that many of the problems we are facing in society, ranging from disease to misadaptive social behavior have roots in the change in the composition of our air, perhaps in conjunction with all fo the manmade chemicals we are breathing, eating, drinking and absorbing.
The point is obviously that humans who have evolved closer to the equator rather than further away from it, have repeatedly shown less ability to adapt to modern life...That problem will get worse as things heat up and the atmosphere gets higher and higher percentages of CO2. I personally believe that many of the problems we are facing in society, ranging from disease to misadaptive social behavior have roots in the change in the composition of our air, perhaps in conjunction with all fo the manmade chemicals we are breathing, eating, drinking and absorbing.
Look, I know global warming exists, but I also know that Mother Nature is far better at taking care of herself than we are. The planet operates just like any other ecosystem. It will continue to function until its carrying capacity is exceeded, the population will be reduced, and the cycle will begin again. World wide birth rates are about 20 births/1000 people and death rates are about 9 deaths/1000. Close enough to 2:1 for me. You can cut emissions all you want, but the simple math says that'll it have no effect as long as the population is growing. 20 people producing only 1 pound of CO2 each is the same as 2 people producing 10 pounds each. Once you convince every man on the planet to keep his pecker in his pants we can focus on an emission reduction plan that will actually work, rather that just postponing the inevitable.
deltadukman: "We may not agree on everything, but we all like t!tties"
He said "pecker in his pants" and "Emission Reduction" in the same sentence! If they do keep the old rascal harnessed there would be less "EMISIONS" for sure! 
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot], Bing [Bot] and 37 guests