Props to Kalima, Bitohistory and MightyWoof for their recent comments with links and images on the fires raging around the world this summer. Their well founded interest and concern struck a chord with me and inspired this article. As provided by MightyWoof, here are astounding Google Earth mappings of current fires in Russia and Africa:
Arizona just had the big Schultz fires:
Add to this the floods that have been occurring around the world. The current flood in Pakistan has hit over 14 million people:
In April, a massive flood in Rio de Janeiro killed over 200 people:
Meanwhile, a massive part of the Petermann glacier in Greenland, a section four times the size of Manhattan Island, just broke off. Scientist say that if Greenland keeps shrinking at this rate, ocean levels will rise by 3 feet this century.
Oh, and remember this year’s “Snowmageddon” in Washington DC? And how these denial morons claimed it disproved “global warming”? Okay, it should have been called “Climate Change” from the beginning to take away such inane talking points but the truth is, the first six months of 2010 are the hottest on record.
And all of this has happened just 8 months into 2010, not even addressing all of the extreme weather last year or the years before.
As a reminder about how high and climbing our planet’s CO2 levels are:
As the GOP and corporate interests fiddle, the world burns and drowns. The greed-motivated deniers of climate change have a transparent agenda of, “The future is irrelevant to my getting more money today.” They seem to believe that the worst won’t have hit by the time they die so they don’t care, it’s their kids and grandkids’ problem. Family Values 2.0 for the GOP.
If the Earth continues to be swept by fires, floods, record snow, record heat, record droughts, oceans rising and disintegration of glaciers and other cooling forces on the planet…with extreme climates year round all across the world, how much will global crop yields and potable water decline? How might that increase the suffering of especially the poorest and how might it foster more wars between peoples and countries over resources?
There are many issues that are critical at this time in history but none of them matter in the long run if the Earth’s environment becomes too unstable or hostile.
We need to get addressing Climate Change back on the table in a big way. Of course, the Repubs will again be the Party of No when it comes to the preservation/protection of human civilization but they can’t be allowed to filibuster a livable planet.
Is it possible that Australia will take the lead on environmental-climate change laws? They have years of environmental havoc there with heat waves, drought and forest fires and now enough have decided enough is enough. With our “party of NO”, I have suddenly become a fan of the parliamentary form of government after reading this article.
But then here is the rub…..
Any party that would form in the US, that would put the country and the environmental first-before party- would only draw from the Democratic Party, unless they could pull the moderates from the Republican Party. 😉
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/18/green-party-australian-elections
This is for anyone who has taken a swim, or should I say “tried” to swim in The Big Lake, Lake Superior, I find this news astounding. This is close to bath water for this lake.
Published August 13 2010
Lake Superior surface waters are warmest on record
The title of this caught my eye.
If Doctors Were Climate Scientists, We
This is from Tom Toles and his Friday Rant. And a sensible rant it is!! When the deniers march out all their scientists, exactly what are their fields of expertise? Dr. Laura, Dr.Phil on climate change? They might as well as march me out, hell, pay me enough–I deny! 😉
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2010/08/friday_rant_heat_exhaustion_e.html
Expert credibility in climate change
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.short
Not a bad little rant for just a “funny picture drawer.” 😉
Very amusing and on target indeed, great cartoon! Thanks for sharing it!
The Washington Post and AP have taken The Planet’s lead 😉 , publishing an article today on this same topic:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/13/AR2010081300582.html
Well then perhaps we deserve this award.
Cool. I’ll frame it in ivory over my rainforest wood mantle!
What warming? There is no proof of it at all!!
Have you heard of David Suzuki? He’s a Canadian from the west coast who has spent most of his life working for ecological issues. I heard about declining phytoplankton and the effect that will have on this planet on the CBC last week. Here’s an article from his Foundation site
http://tinyurl.com/38qdytq
He has almost reached the pessimistic stage that I’m at:
While governments stall and deniers spread confusion, it gets more and more difficult to achieve the kind of emissions reductions that scientists say are necessary to prevent the Earth from reaching a cataclysmic rise in global average temperatures. It was once possible, and may still be, but we are reaching a point where it will become impossible. (emphasis mine)
Edited to add: There have also been reported two incidences on the eastern seaboard (I read it on Huffpo I think) of a large quantity of dead fish floating along the shoreline … scientists have yet to determine the cause.
Yes, I remember David Suzuki. He had a show on CBC, right?
He still does Pepe – The Nature of Things. Good programme!
MW, you may appreciate this site on climate. Whole bunch here to read and absorb.
http://climateprogress.org/
The end is not in sight. Just saw this on the breaking news fron the GlobalPost.
http://www.globalpost.com/breaking-news/global/mudslides-trap-500-kill-five-southwest-china
This was posted just an hour ago! Why do I have some weird feeling about these problems in China and the massive Three Gorges Dam?
Wow. What’s going on with Central Africa?
e’cat, What is strange about that is I have not heard a peep about those fires. Not enough “civilization” there?
Yes. You’d think it would be in the news!
I did a search yesterday – not a long onew admittedly – and all I could find was this report in the Telegraph (UK)
http://tinyurl.com/kwesah
I got the fire download from FIRMS on the U. of Maryland site here
http://tinyurl.com/38hr42d
The only problem I have with these satellite images is that I couldn’t find any definition as to what the flame points represented other than ‘active fire/hotspots’ …. so what you’re looking at may be no more than, perhaps, someones cooking fire, rather than a full blown raging out of control fire.
MW, I had the same thought about the size of the fires. Campfire/forest-fire? My thought is, if it is detected by satellite, it must be of a fairly good size. ?? I do wish there was some scale shown.
Isn’t it funny how that works out?
Sort of like a Nigerian oil spill.
Could you imagine the outrage “here in civilization” if there were the constant spills like in Nigeria?
Anyway, I was being silly before, but 2007 was the hottest year in more than 50 years in Montana. 15 days over 100. More than 40 days over 90; this is at 3,200 feet in the Northern Rockies. Almost the entire western half of the state caught on fire. Over 1 million acres burned, and Idaho got hit worse than Montana. The valley was choked with smoke for weeks. You couldn’t go hiking hardly anywhere worthwhile. It was actually surreal, an orange sky almost every day.
And I remember going to a lecture from Steve Running, who was part of the Nobel Peace Prize group, and he made a big point that you couldn’t blame that specific summer on global warming, because weather and climate aren’t the same thing.
But, he said in 50 years, 2007 would likely be considered a “normal” summer for the Northern Rockies.
Scary.
July in Colorado has become unbearable. I was in Telluride a couple weeks ago, hoping it would be nice and cool since the altitude of the town is 8,750. Nope. It was unbearably hot — 90+. Had to find shade for the dogs. Most of our glaciers are disappearing. What’s really scary is that there are entire mountain ranges covered with dead trees because of the pine beetle disease. If there’s a spark in any of these areas….wow. It’s gonna be a blow-out.
Hey e’cat! Our climate denier of a Senator, Jon Kyl, says the forest fires are because of the pine bark beetles not climate change. Duh!! They only attack the tress if they are under stress. Guess what Senator Kyl, lack of moisture has put them under stress.
Why do they R’s hate science? Many studies have been done right here in your state by the University of Arizona by some world renowned scientists from the very “skool” you went to!
The pine beetle infestation is quickly becoming a very big deal in Montana, too.
It’s really terrible to see entire mountain chains covered with dead trees. They turn a strange rust color. I’m sorry to hear it’s moving into Montana. For a long time it was only west of the Divide. Now I see the red trees on the eastern slope too. There’s no way to stop it.
Yeah, Southern Montana around Butte and Bozeman got it bad.
I just saw this on Huff post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/12/global-weirding-extreme-c_n_680364.html
Huh! That that was posted right after AdLib’s post. Go figure. 😉
little copy cats
What these ignorant global warming deniers don’t seem to understand is that global warming brings extreme heat to some places and extreme cold to others. I guess they are stuck on the word “warming” or just stuck on stupid.
Good, hope the sentiment will continue to spread, this needs to rise back up as a priority in the public’s mind. And working against Climate Change means a lot for the economy including building up an industry and jobs in renewable energy to cut CO2 emissions.
We could be pursuing two major issues for the price of one, I wish Obama and Dems in Congress would see how these two strengthen each other as a package.
I had a sudden realization that I may have broken copyright laws by posting these GoogleEarth pics. Is there any way you can put these attributions under the GoogleEarth screen shots Adlib??
Fires in Russia
Copyright Google 2010
US Dept of State Geographer
Copyright 2010 Europa Technologies
Copyright 2010 Tele Atlas
Fires in southern Africa
Copyright Google 2010
US Dept of State Geographer
Copyright 2010 Europa Technologies
Data SOI, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO
No worries, anything the government owns is our property as citizens and taxpayers, they can’t enforce a copyright against those who have essentially paid for the creation of something…and basically own.
But, as far as Google and others are concerned, I will add the copyright info.
Does Google earth or the Weather Channel ever mention that they use taxpayer funded satellites for their images?
Heh! Bito, you’ve done it again!
I had the same thought when I posted the link on MB, Mw. It should be alright though, they have their credit underneath it and I’ll bail you out should they come knocking on your door. 🙂
Heh 😀
The Shultz Fire was human caused (some dumbass didn’t put out their campfire) although they haven’t caught anybody yet. There was another fire in Flagstaff that nearly burned down the Little America Hotel. That one was caused by a homeless guy who also didn’t put out his campfire.
The weather in my neck of northwest Arizona has been great. I was out this morning in the mountains with my bicycle. Although humidity might return later in the week.
A lot of people don’t understand that weather extremes will become more pronounced as climate change gathers more steam (pun intended).
I was, a few years back when the Chretien liberal government signed the Kyoto Accord, quite optimistic that climate change could be, with diligence, intelligence and global co-operation, be slowly halted and eventually reversed. The Chretien government and the succeeding Martin government sat on their fat arses and did bugger all about anything ‘Kyotic’. Then the Harper Cons came into power and, at first, were climate change deniers – that went down like a lead ballon with most Canadians, so they kinda found religion but declared nothing could be done unless it was in lockstep with our great friend, neighbour and ally, the American Government – who at the time was Bush and the Republicans.
I had greatr hope when Barack Obama was elected and the Congress and Senate was Democrat ……… but *sigh* – there’s been a lot on your legislative plate and still climate change hasn’t been addressed. I suspect, given the last 18+ months with the Party of No, that if any legislation is passed it will be totally and completely inadequate to the task and our own Conservative government will maybe pass some lip service legislation if we’re lucky.
I am no longer optimistic about the survival of the human race – the planet will survive but I doubt there will be much left on it 100 years from now. With apologies to all parents here – I’m so glad we (hubby and I) chose not to have children – we are leaving a terrible legacy for future generations.
I have tried to inspire my two children that they could be the ones to discover solutions to our planet’s environmental problems.
Especially my accelerated son, the science lover.
I don’t get too heavy, but I do say “A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and yours is amazing.” As well as “You could be the one”, but I readily admit that I am very partial to the phrasing “…Is the One”. LOL.
(FYI, If you don’t know me, and I don’t think you do, I am the former poster “He Is The One”.)
Hello, Mightywoof, do I hear some Brit in your jargon?
Wotcher mate/HITO – yup, Brit born and bred; Canajun by choice and proud of it 😀
Very cool HITO,
You never know where those seeds will grow
You are awesome!
MW, just two years ago the R’s here, led by McCain, were all for a climate/energy bill,including a form of caps. Now with Obama in office, they have their “Party of NO! We don’t need no climate bill.”
The fire maps and graph are excellent and very persuasive.
The Mid-Hudson Valley, NY report (3 hours north of NYC) includes the hottest summer in my memory of being here these past 22 years.
Humid, dew points off the records, and 90 something everyday.
I remember when I bought my former house, the real estate agent said “You’re in the mountains, you won’t need air conditioning”.
Ha!
HITO!
My gosh, is it good to see you!
I grew up in Michigan near Detroit, and we didn’t have air conditioning.
We lived in France from 2001 to 2003 and we didn’t have air conditioning there either.
In 2003 it hit 100 in Paris, and all I had was 2 fans.
The good news from all of that was that the grapes made their best wines ever!
LOL
Javaz, you should know you have far more than 2 fans these days!
There’s something wrong. Weather is too extreme, and I hope to God someone is paying attention.
If the Atlantic’s Gulf Stream raises by a mere 3 degrees the effects will be global…especially to the western European shoreline.
Wonderful to see you HITO!
Stopping for a moment and thinking about what warmer temperatures would bring:
1. A year long fire season.
2. More mosquitoes and other pests, more bacteria all around us.
3. Lakes and rivers drying up, less potable water available, skyrocketing prices for consumers on water usage.
4. Higher electricity usage for air conditioning and bigger bills for consumers.
5. Fewer snowball fights.
Blowback is rarely considered until it hits, just thinking of the few above should shake up any thoughtful person as to the urgency of addressing things before they get far worse.
NY is not known for that “fire season”. We have the Shawangunks (mountains) which occasionally cleanses itself with a big lightning induced fire that will take out 30 acres. But these days there are more people building homes in those dangerous areas.
We also have the Ashokan reservoir near here. That is NYC’s start of their water supply. It flows south through other filtration/up-pumping stations.
When that reservoir drops to low levels, NYC and the governor take note rather quickly. So far so good this year. But it is the bellwether.
Everything the GOP does now has business implications, AdLib.
No matter what, don’t interrupt making big bucks!
Your house burned down in a wildfire?
Tough shit!
I made $$$ while your house burned down.
So sorry.
Howdy AdLib!
Hey Seek!
Exactly, anything that gets in the way of profit is the enemy…even self-preservation!
Jon Stewart used this clip last night on another topic but it applies here.
From Goodfellas, the “Fuck You, pay me!” sequence:
LOL
I saw that!
The Daily Show still rocks.
Peace to you and yours, AdLib.
Cheers Seek, so nice to see you! And the best back at you and yours too!
90 something temps? Amateur!-wink
Relatively speaking, Nevada weather has been a bit cooler the last few years.
Less 100+ temps here in the Southern Nevada mountains, and cooler nights.
Yeah, well you’re a tough guy. You don’t melt like I do. I don’t look good withering.
So, NY is getting NV’s heat? At least marginally?
In about a week, definitely.
The humidity should rise, also.
LMAO!
You tricky guy, you!
I hear ya. I’m ready for that Nevadian heat…bring it on!
And I’m ready for some cooler weather.
The localized weather report should be interesting, to say the least.
Foggy windows without rain storms.
Lotsa humidity in smaller areas.
People best be ready to hydrate at a moments notice.
Lack of moisture or arid conditions due to excessive drainage can become a problem. It is imperative that one keeps irrigation in the forefront of considerations.
Sometimes my windows fog up. I assume it’s based on the hot vs. cold between the apartment and the outside world.
What scares me is the short duration cooling spell as the all of the ice sheets melt and turn our planet into a giant Coleman ice chest. After that effect is gone, we are in for heat waves of unparalleled magnitude. The earth is going to burn.
Great to see you, FrankenPC!
In it’s 4.7 billion years, The Earth has had a cycle of freezing over, warming and hosting life then sometimes warming up severely but always eventually freezing over again.
However, it’s usually happened gradually (when meteors aren’t involved). This time, not so much.
This ignorant meme by the RW that humans can’t possibly be affecting the environment is asinine. We know we pollute our air and water to where it can make us ill and even die. We just had the BP oil spill, yet humans can’t affect the environment?
I don’t think the Repubs in government believe this BS, they just peddle it to their mindless followers to help them fight corporate regulation.