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February 24, 2004
in one day I am
shocked to the core...
that the leader of our country should suggest making a constitutional change to flat out discriminate and repress many Americans. Then again, why am I surprised? This is monkey man we're talking about. The only thing that I suppose I am happy about is that this drastic of a move by him will probably be very politically damaging--many republicans who were wavering will probably change their minds about voting for him. He's flat out pandering to the religious right--the far right.
And worse, that he is so concerned about "terror" that a crucial Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew Marsall (who has been an advisor for the defense department for decades, and apparently the author of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plans for a major transformation of the US military), was covered up. This report talks about the catastrophic changes that will take place within the next 20 years as a result of global warming.
According to a Yahoo article picked up from the Observer:
Some examples given of probable scenarios in the dramatic report include:
-- Britain will have winters similar to those in current-day Siberia as European temperatures drop off radically by 2020.
-- by 2007 violent storms will make large parts of the Netherlands uninhabitable and lead to a breach in the acqueduct system in California that supplies all water to densely populated southern California
-- Europe and the United States become "virtual fortresses" trying to keep out millions of migrants whose homelands have been wiped out by rising sea levels or made unfarmable by drought.
-- "catastrophic" shortages of potable water and energy will lead to widespread war by 2020.
It makes me feel absolutely sick. The Union of Concerned Scientists, which includes 20 Nobel laureates spoke out against Bush this week and how his adminstration distorted scientific findings for political reasonings. "On global warming alone, the administration belittled, misrepresented, altered or quashed multiple reports suggesting a clear link between greenhouse gas emissions and the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil. A study detailing the impact of mercury emissions from power plants was sanitized to industry specifications. Another study suggesting that a Congressional clean-air bill would achieve greater pollution reductions than Mr. Bush's own plan, at approximately the same cost, was withheld."
It honestly makes me feel ill. That he cares more about money, power and politics than the air we breathe, the sky above our heads, the earth beneath our feet.
Maybe I will think of a job at Disney after all. I met a recruiter today from DisneyWorld. I worked at Disneyland before, and so I went to talk to her. The woman is from my hometown, Nine Mile Falls, WA (population 150, although I would imagine in the widespread community of an area about 25-30 miles around it would be a few thousand or so). How random is that?! We figured out she went to school with my brother. She said the weather in Florida is much nicer than she thought, not humid except for one month a year. Florida sounds pretty damn nice right now, but I have this feeling that if the global warming report is correct, that the whole peninsula will probably fall into the ocean. Maybe we could get a good 20 years out of it first?
I thought I hated Bush before. Now I really really loathe him.
Posted by crystallyn at February 24, 2004 10:44 PM
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Comments
Yeah, the president makes my teeth ache; the gay marriage constitutional amendment is hateful; and this administration has been junking science, on the environmental and otherwise, for years – but the kafuffle about the Marshall report could use a little context.
I used to have a research interest in rapid climate change. One of the showpieces of the field is an historical event where the world slid into ice age fast – in less than ten years – stayed there for another ten or so, then just as rapidly rebounded. The Marshall report is a "what if that happens again" brainstorm.
In other words it:
-is about global cooling, not global warming
-posits rapid climate change, which is not a mainstream theory (though I think it's true)
-is speculative, not predictive
By all means let us be outraged about the way the Bush administration has ignored or attacked scientists who warn about the consequences of global warming and suggest ways to lessen its effects. We are in real danger and this administration does us real damage. But we environmentalists will only hurt our credibility if we make too much of this Marshall report.
Posted by: Erin at February 25, 2004 09:25 AM