George W. Bush and the Suppression of Truth

Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.
The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
more HERE

Related:
Cheney Pressured Bush to Authorize Use of Military on US Soil

...and Dubya was a self-proclaimed man of faith...wait, isn't 'do not lie' like, a mantra? ...aaah...ten commandments...bill of rights...it's all in the interpretation...

Catastrophic Climate Change

impacts of climate change

Man-made climate change could bring parching droughts to the Southwest and pounding rainstorms to Washington, put Vermont maple sugar farms out of business and Key West underwater over the next century, according to a federal report released yesterday.
The report found that a warmer world, with average U.S. temperatures increasing four to 11 degrees, would significantly alter natural ecosystems and urban life. More than before, scientists broke down those effects to the regional level.
The timing of yesterday's report was also significant, with the House of Representatives considering a bill that would cap heat-trapping emissions.
Washington Post report HERE
the report itself is HERE
EPA climate change info HERE

Related:
UN warns of 'megadisasters' linked to climate change
Farm Belt Lawmakers Challenge Climate Bill

Critical Climate Change

A new kind of refugee is on the rise. And by 2050, there could be as many as 200 million of them.
They are not fleeing despicable acts of violence or persecution but the very land and water on which their livelihoods depend. They are some of the world's poorest, forced from their homes by global climate change.
Alarmed by the predictions on climate refugees, humanitarian agencies warn that recent gains in the fight against poverty could vanish unless issues of forced migration become an integral part of the dialogue on global warming.
CNN report HERE

Witnessing Extinction

Study Shows Polar Bears Are in Serious Trouble, Marine Conservationist Says
Warmer temperatures and earlier melting of sea ice are causing polar bears to go hungry. The number of undernourished bears has tripled.
more HERE
Polar Bears International website HERE

Alaska Groundswell

JUNEAU, Alaska — Global warming conjures images of rising seas that threaten coastal areas. But in Juneau, as almost nowhere else in the world, climate change is having the opposite effect: As the glaciers melt, the land is rising, causing the sea to retreat.
New York Times report HERE

Polar Bear Policy Persists

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that he will retain the Bush administration's controversial rule on polar bear protections, rejecting special authority given to him by Congress and the pleas of Democratic lawmakers, environmentalists and scientists to overturn the regulation.
Interior will now be forced to defend the rule in court. Environmental groups that sued to overturn the rule said today that they plan to press their lawsuit.
Some environmental groups see the polar bear listing as their best opportunity to force the government to consider harm from greenhouse gases and regulate emissions. Even though the Obama administration has pledged to address climate change, Salazar said today that such action should not come through the Endangered Species Act -- the same position taken by the Bush administration.
New York Times report HERE
want to join efforts to help polar bears? go HERE

Planet Girth

Looking for inspiration to lose weight?
It may be worth taking a look at the results of a report in latest issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology.
The study concludes that being overweight or obese “should be recognized as an environmental problem” because of its contribution to climate change from additional food and transport emissions.
The study found that a lean population, such as the Vietnamese, consume about 20 percent less food and produce fewer greenhouse gases than a population in a country like the United States, where about 40 percent of people are obese.
more HERE

Related:
Too Much Sex Leads to Global Warming

Greenhouse gases a threat to public health

After a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed finding Friday that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare.
The proposed finding, which now moves to a public comment period, identified six greenhouse gases that pose a potential threat to human health and welfare, clearing the way for possible U.S. regulation.
Los Angeles Times report HERE

Ice Ice Baby

The rich life of Svalbard, Norway’s Arctic archipelago, faces a creeping thaw.
Arctic sea ice is shrinking as temperatures rise. In 2007 and 2008 sea ice dipped to the lowest extent on record.
National Geographic story HERE

Hundreds Attend Global Warming Protest

The Loss of Ice

TROLL RESEARCH STATION, Antarctica - Glaciers in Antarctica are melting faster and across a much wider area than previously thought, a development that threatens to raise sea levels worldwide and force millions of people to flee low-lying areas, scientists said Wednesday.
story is HERE

Warming Worse

The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.
Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted.
Professor Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report had underestimated the rate of change.
He said warming is likely to cause more environmental damage than forecast.
BBC report HERE

Losing the Lemming

Climate change may be responsible for shrinking lemming populations in Norway, a new study shows.
Lemming populations throughout Scandinavia tend to explode naturally every three to five years, causing huge numbers to go in search of food. Occasionally this leads the rodents to jump into water and swim to new pastures—the origin of the myth that lemmings commit mass suicide.
In recent years, however, outbreaks have become a rarity in many parts of Scandinavia.
more HERE

Iceland Declares War on Polar Bears

Sarah Palin and Iceland have something in common...both are willing to kill innocent creatures whose habitat is disappearing...seems what's really become extinct is humanitarianism.
An Icelandic commission has recommended that any polar bears that manage to reach the island nation from Greenland should be shot because it’s too expensive to ship the dangerous animals back to their natural habitat or to zoos.
The commission was appointed last summer after two of the bears were shot dead. They had apparently managed to swim up to 200 miles after ice floes that carried them part of the way from Greenland melted beneath their feet. Polar bear sightings had been rare in Iceland until this past June.
The killings sparked outrage from conservation groups that blamed authorities for not keeping the bears isolated until they could be safely relocated.
The arrival of two bears with a two-week period could lend credence to warnings that global warming is now melting the bears’ habitats.
more HERE

Ahh...Venice!

Wake boarder Duncan Zuur makes the best of a second day of flooding in Venice's storied St. Mark's Square. But considering that only foot traffic is allowed on Venice's streets and piazzas, what's pulling him?
more on the flood HERE

Where Have All the Acorns Gone?

Nut-bearing trees in Pennsylvania and in parts of surrounding states have dropped few of the nuggets important to the survival of squirrels and mice, and a main diet of many other creatures, from turkeys to blue jays to deer. Last year, you could hardly walk, there were so many acorns. It was like marbles. But there are none this year.
Local residents have reported squirrels gnawing on plastic Adirondack chairs and devouring porch pumpkins.
The lack of acorns this fall — following a bumper crop last year — has been so startling and across the board among oaks, hickories and walnuts, that some naturalists are worried that something is amiss. The global warming red flag has even been raised.
more HERE and HERE

1 in 4 Mammals Could Face Extinction

One in four mammals could disappear due to habitat loss, indiscriminate hunting and climate change, a world conservation body warned recently.
"Within our lifetime, hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions," said a spokesperson for the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The group has placed 188 mammals in its most-threatened category — critically endangered.
Meeting recently in Barcelona, Spain, at the World Conservation Congress, the group annually issues a Red List of Threatened Species.
more HERE

Mushroom Tip of the Iceberg

Global climate change is turning icebergs into giant penises...
more HERE

White Roofs Slow Global Warming

Builders have known for decades that white roofs reflect the sun's rays and lower the cost of air conditioning. But now scientists say they have quantified a new benefit: slowing global warming.
more HERE

Goosebumps & Glaciers

Six hundred people shed their clothes on a glacier in the Swiss Alps to bodily cry out for help against a planetary emergency: global warming.
The nude volunteers posed for Greenpeace and renowned naked 'installation' artist Spencer Tunick on the Aletsch Glacier.
Without clothes, the human body is vulnerable, exposed, it's life or death at the whim of the elements. Global warming is stripping away the globes glaciers and leaving planet earth vulnerable to extreme weather, floods, sea-level rise, global decreases in carrying capacity and agricultural production, fresh water shortages, disease and mass human dislocations.
If global warming continues at its current rate, most glaciers in Switzerland will completely disappear by 2080. Over the last 150 years, alpine glaciers have reduced in size by approximately one third of their surface and half of their mass, and this melting is accelerating. The Aletsch Glacier retreated 115 meters (377 feet) in a single year from 2005 to 2006.
more HERE
video HERE