You Mean Our Corporate Overlords Don't Really Care About Us? - Page 10
Posts: 3,560	Did you ever google "government greed"?
It's there, but never mind. To you, government greed is oxymoronic, yet to me, it is a huge price that I have shared with you. That price is a fact that the only objective comments in response was, "get a freakin' tax accountant". Do you feel that way?
http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...w=1217&bih=628
Posts: 1,212	The Fires This Time
In coverage of extreme weather, media downplay climate change
On April 14, a massive storm swept down out of the Rocky Mountains into the Midwest and South, spawning more than 150 tornadoes that killed 43 people across 16 states (Capital Weather Gang, 4/18/11). It was one of the largest weather catastrophes in United States history�but was soon upstaged by an even larger storm, the 2011 Super Outbreak that spread more than 300 tornadoes across 14 states from April 25 to 28 (including an all-time one-day record of 188 twisters on April 27), killing 339 people, including 41 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (CNN, 5/1/11).
Ensuing weeks saw Texas wildfires that had been burning since December expand to consume more than 3 million acres (Texas Forest Service, 6/28/11; CNN, 4/25/11), plus record flooding along the Mississippi River, which couldn�t contain the water from April�s storms on top of the spring snowmelt. On May 22, a super-strong F5 tornado killed 153 people as it flattened a large part of Joplin, Missouri (National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, 5/22/11) ; in the first two weeks of June, a heat wave broke temperature records in multiple states, and the Wallow fire became the largest in Arizona state history (Washington Post, 6/14/11).
It was an unprecedented string of severe weather: By mid-June, more than 1,000 tornadoes had killed 536 people (NOAA, 6/13/11), nearly as many deaths as in the entire preceding decade. And it was only natural to ask: Were we seeing the effects of climate change?
Most scientists would say yes, or at least �probably.� The Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change, a global scientific body that has been a target of conservatives despite a record of soft-pedaling its findings to avoid controversy (Extra!, 7/8/07), warned on February 2, 2007, �It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.� (In science-speak, �very likely� refers to a certainty of greater than 90 percent, and is as near as you get to a definitive conclusion.) Other forecasts (e.g., Environment America, 9/8/10) have projected that wet regions will receive record rainfall thanks to increasing evaporation, while dry ones get record drought, as climate patterns shift to accommodate the new normal.
Yet despite these dire predictions, U.S. media were hesitant to investigate the links between climate change and this spring�s extreme weather. Much coverage settled for the cheap irony of contrasting extreme phenomena, as when NBC�s Saturday Today show meteorologist Bill Karins (6/11/11) quipped: Feast or famine�s been the rule this spring. The northern half of the country, we�ve dealt with the heavy rain, the record snow pack that�s now melting in the northern Rockies. That�s causing the flooding. The southern half of the country, you would love some of that rain.
Even news reports that probed deeper into the causes of the spring�s extreme weather, though, often stopped short of looking at climate factors. A Chicago Tribune story (4/29/11) headlined, �Why April Record for Twisters? Experts Call It Random, Say Nature Varies,� noted that �some meteorologists� blame the periodic weather pattern known as La Ni�a, but then cited other scientists as saying the tornado outbreak was just random variation, with University of Illinois meteorologist Bob Rauber saying, �Global warming is occurring, but this is not a manifestation of it.�
On the CBS Evening News (6/9/11), meanwhile, John Blackstone noted, �Perhaps the biggest weather troublemaker has been in the Gulf of Mexico, where sea surface temperatures have been almost 2 degrees [Fahrenheit] above average. That warm, moist Gulf air meeting the powerful jet stream created the string of tornadoes that killed 525 people.� Yet, asked by anchor Scott Pelley why the Gulf of Mexico is hotter than usual, Blackstone replied only: �Well, it�s related to the drought in the South�in the South-Southwest, with little clouds, lots of sunshine, the waters warming up and those warm waters could add energy to this hurricane season as well.�
But while La Ni�a is a natural cyclical variation, the warming Gulf is not�at the very least, it�s exacerbated by the global warming trend, which has pumped at least four times the heat energy into the oceans that it has into
You Mean Our Corporate Overlords Don't Really Care About Us? - Page 10
Posts: 3,560	Did you ever google "government greed"?
It's there, but never mind. To you, government greed is oxymoronic, yet to me, it is a huge price that I have shared with you. That price is a fact that the only objective comments in response was, "get a freakin' tax accountant". Do you feel that way?
http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...w=1217&bih=628
Posts: 1,212	The Fires This Time
In coverage of extreme weather, media downplay climate change
On April 14, a massive storm swept down out of the Rocky Mountains into the Midwest and South, spawning more than 150 tornadoes that killed 43 people across 16 states (Capital Weather Gang, 4/18/11). It was one of the largest weather catastrophes in United States history�but was soon upstaged by an even larger storm, the 2011 Super Outbreak that spread more than 300 tornadoes across 14 states from April 25 to 28 (including an all-time one-day record of 188 twisters on April 27), killing 339 people, including 41 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (CNN, 5/1/11).
Ensuing weeks saw Texas wildfires that had been burning since December expand to consume more than 3 million acres (Texas Forest Service, 6/28/11; CNN, 4/25/11), plus record flooding along the Mississippi River, which couldn�t contain the water from April�s storms on top of the spring snowmelt. On May 22, a super-strong F5 tornado killed 153 people as it flattened a large part of Joplin, Missouri (National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, 5/22/11) ; in the first two weeks of June, a heat wave broke temperature records in multiple states, and the Wallow fire became the largest in Arizona state history (Washington Post, 6/14/11).
It was an unprecedented string of severe weather: By mid-June, more than 1,000 tornadoes had killed 536 people (NOAA, 6/13/11), nearly as many deaths as in the entire preceding decade. And it was only natural to ask: Were we seeing the effects of climate change?
Most scientists would say yes, or at least �probably.� The Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change, a global scientific body that has been a target of conservatives despite a record of soft-pedaling its findings to avoid controversy (Extra!, 7/8/07), warned on February 2, 2007, �It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.� (In sci
ence-speak, �very likely� refers to a certainty of greater than 90 percent, and is as near as you get to a definitive conclusion.) Other forecasts (e.g., Environment America, 9/8/10) have projected that wet regions will receive record rainfall thanks to increasing evaporation, while dry ones get record drought, as climate patterns shift to accommodate the new normal.
Yet despite these dire predictions, U.S. media were hesitant to investigate the links between climate change and this spring�s extreme weather. Much coverage settled for the cheap irony of contrasting extreme phenomena, as when NBC�s Saturday Today show meteorologist Bill Karins (6/11/11) quipped: Feast or famine�s been the rule this spring. The northern half of the country, we�ve dealt with the heavy rain, the record snow pack that�s now melting in the northern Rockies. That�s causing the flooding. The southern half of the country, you would love some of that rain.
Even news reports that probed deeper into the causes of the spring�s extreme weather, though, often stopped short of looking at climate factors. A Chicago Tribune story (4/29/11) headlined, �Why April Record for Twisters? Experts Call It Random, Say Nature Varies,� noted that �some meteorologists� blame the periodic weather pattern known as La Ni�a, but then cited other scientists as saying the tornado outbreak was just random variation, with University of Illinois meteorologist Bob Rauber saying, �Global warming is occurring, but this is not a manifestation of it.�
On the CBS Evening News (6/9/11), meanwhile, John Blackstone noted, �Perhaps the biggest weather troublemaker has been in the Gulf of Mexico, where sea surface temperatures have been almost 2 degrees [Fahrenheit] above average. That warm, moist Gulf air meeting the powerful jet stream created the string of tornadoes that killed 525 people.� Yet, asked by anchor Scott Pelley why the Gulf of Mexico is hotter than usual, Blackstone replied only: �Well, it�s related to the drought in the South�in the South-Southwest, with little clouds, lots of sunshine, the waters warming up and those warm waters could add energy to this hurricane season as well.�
But while La Ni�a is a natural cyclical variation, the warming Gulf is not�at the very least, it�s exacerbated by the global warming trend, which has pumped at least four times the heat energy into the oceans that it has into