"The Arctic is genuinely collapsing. Scientists used to call these things the canary in the mine. What they say now is, The canary is dead. We are at the top of Niagara Falls, Tina, in a canoe. There is an image for your viewers. We got here by drifting, but we cannot turn around for a lazy paddle back when you finally stop pissing around. We have arrived at the point of an audible roar. Does it strike you as a good time to debate the existence of the falls?" ~Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior, p. 367

Digby nails it.

My question to climate change deniers is this: what if you're wrong? The only thing that will happen if the world addresses climate change will be a somewhat orderly change in the way we use energy, some economic reorganization and a whole lot of jobs and business being done to switch to different energy sources. The changes that are being proposed to mitigate climate change are far less cataclysmic than the changes that would be imposed by unaddressed climate change itself. Therefore, a fairly simple risk assessment suggests that anyone with a brain should take the prudent course and assume that the consensus that climate change is man made is the correct one and take steps to deal with it before it's too late.

"What if," indeed.
_____
This was on the front page of today's Arizona Republic.
 
 
The story explained the average temperature in Phoenix from June through August was 95.1 degrees. This was followed by a little table listing the five hottest summers on record, dating from 1895.
 
The four hottest summers were 2013, 2011, 2007 and 2002.
 
Coincidence, I'm sure.
 
What I found interesting about this story (and not in a good way) is that the words "climate change" were never mentioned, and there was only a brief one-sentence quote in the story from a climate scientist.
 
The story also includes this, almost as a throwaway.
 
It wasn’t just Phoenix that simmered this summer. It was the fifth-hottest summer worldwide since record-keeping began in 1880, and the 15th-hottest in the United States, Crouch said. Most of the hotter areas were in the West.

Nationwide, the numbers reflect a warming trend of 1 degree over the past century. In Arizona, the increase has been about 2 degrees, he said.
 
It is a thoroughly irresponsible lapse in journalism to write these facts and not provide the explanation behind them--namely, that global warming is taking place, and humans are the cause.
 
Nonsense like this is why nothing will be done, and humans will continue their slide into the abyss, taking the planet with them. 


The images coming out of Moore, Oklahoma are just incredible. 

 

51 people dead (as of this writing). A mile-wide swath of destruction. At least an EF-4 in strength, perhaps an EF-5. 200+ mph winds. 

 

And even after this, there will still be assholes who deny the reality of climate change.  


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Words To Live By

There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away. ~Emily Dickinson

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins. ~Neil Gaiman

Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in. ~Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The road to hell is paved with adverbs. ~Stephen King

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read. ~Mark Twain

I feel free and strong. If I were not a reader of books I could not feel this way. ~Walter Tevis

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. ~George R.R. Martin

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