Buffalo Boy's Blog
Giving You More Than Just My Two Cents
Recently in Global Warming Category
More Global Warming Evidence
Here is another article that highlights the recent warming and depletion of the necessary glaciers in the Arctic and Greenland. Significant melthing has continued this summer and much of what has fallen off is not replaceable due to warming temperatures. The piece in this article is the size of Manhattan and over 4500 years old.
Once the Arctic sea ice is gone we lose the "air conditioner" for the northern hemisphere. The ice that reflects sun light and prevents warming gives way to water which absorbs more of the suns warming rays. Every time a piece like that breaks off its a piece of a valuable eco-system and contributes to more warming by opening up more heat absorbing water. There is also algae in this ice that helps in reducing CO2 by absorbing CO2 out of the atmosphere. All this and yet here is Ms. Palin suggesting we drill, drill, drill up there. Great. Yet another example of this woman's intentions.Category: Global Warming
Climate Program Shut Down
I would like to think that this is an over sight. Why in a time that we need funding and research to solve the climate crisis is a small, low cost yet important climate program shutting down due to lack of funding?
The National Center for Atmospheric Research is shutting down an important program that has been helping developing countries deal with climate change. It is a program that could potentially help millions of people deal with the possibility of becoming climate refugees as global warming changes the face of our planet. Its a program that was run on a very low budget yet was doing a lot of important work in researching climate change in those countries that would see the greatest devastation, the ones that are still developing, third world countries.It was run on about $500,000 a year. A small price to pay for the millions that are going to be affected.Category: Global Warming | News | environment
What A Dick
The EPA is an agency that is supposed to have been created by the federal government to protect human health, the air we breath, water, and the land on which we live. It began operations December 2nd, 1970. And it was doing a damn good job until 8 years ago when the Bush administration took office.
The latest report that will no doubt lend its hand to the horrendous enironmental legacy that this administration is leaving behind is the report out now that Dick Cheney's (from now on Im just going to call him Dick, if the shoe fits, wear it right?) office purposefully tried to and was successful in altering EPA testimony that would have shown adverse health effect to humans from CO2 and resultant global warming as per the Clean Air Act.
Isn't knowing that grounds for punishing this man with prison time? This is our air, our water, our land and they are preventing the EPA from protecting US, U.S.A. citizens from pollutants. From warning us of dangers to our health.
Its sad that there are people out there who are so brainwashed by this administration that they won't even recognize this as serious. This administration is more concerned about coorporate welfare than its own citizens and the environment in which we live.
These men at the top of this administration are as evil as the look on Dick's face up above. They are criminals and have used the White House as their own little lawless, coorporate backed, playground. 6 Months, 10 days till they are gone.
Category: Global Warming | News | Politics | Science | environment
No Ice At North Pole Is a Big Deal
No ice at the North Pole is a big deal no matter what your views on climate change are.
First, this has never happened, second, the ice at the top of the world is one of the big "air conditioners" of our earth. Without it we lose its cooling effects, which could really get global warming in high gear. What sickens me is the fact that people are looking at the benefits. What benefits? There are none. How can you look at this as a benefit? Shipping lanes and natural resources being accessible should be the least of our concerns. No ice at the North Pole is no different than if the Amazon Rain Forest were to wither away for the Winter. Same type of idea, or if the great lakes were to dry up every summer. The cause of this is from the increased melting last summer that left the Arctic with more new ice (ice less than a year old). If it all goes, it will melt even sooner than the expected date of September of this year. It is most certainly evidence of a warming planet and without that ice, a planet that will no doubt start to speed in its warming trends.The naysayers out there can keep on doubting but I think its better to play on the side of caution and respect the fact that the crap we spew into the atmosphere is having an impact. There is more evidence for it than against it with virtual consensus amongst any credible scientists in the field. Its happening whether you believe in it or not.
Category: Global Warming | environment
Gore's Environmental Agenda Not Political
Al Gore does not have a politcal bone in his body when it comes to the environmental issues he so dearly supports. This article basically sums up where Al Gore is headed and despite last week's endorsement of Barack Obama, its not back into politics. He was just showing his support for the candidate he feels will be best for the environmental causes he supports.
His roots are as an environmentalist even if he started as a politician. His plans are to stay out of Washington, except to provide his voice on environmental issues. You can look at his track record dating all the way back to his days in congress and he has always been pro-environment. He has written more books than just An Inconvenient Truth. He wrote Earth in the Balance in 1990 that is a very solid and informative read for those who do have an environmental bone in their body.
I wanted Gore to run because I thought that he could make a huge difference in a time when we need someone to lead, but I respect his choice to stay on the outside looking in. He'll provide his expertise when needed Im sure, but he will pick his spots. His number one passion is now and really always has been the environment and "green" causes. No matter how you view him, you have to respect him for avoiding the spotlight.
He could have easily made it very interesting and jumped on board with Obama back when the primary was still a dead heat, but he stayed out. He wants people to recognize that hes not doing what he is doing for politcal reasons but for the right reasons. Hes doing it for that blue ball we call home.
Category: Global Warming | News | Politics | environment
One More Little Tidbit
The impeachment articles were not just about the Iraq war. George W. Bush has also been the worst president involving the environment. Laws made to protect our precious resources have been obliterated by this agency including one that played a big role in my families life, the Superfund bill which was designed to force coorporations to cleam up their shit if they choose to dump into a landfill on public land. That bill no longer is funded and thus landfills filled with toxic waste are no longer being cleaned up because the Bush administration choose to let industry not be responsible for their fuck ups.
Here is evidence of this administrations brain washing its following on global warming and climate change, this directly out of the Kucinich impeachment papers:
"4. A December 2004 paper in Science reviewed 928 studies published in peer reviewed journals to determine the number providing evidence against the existence of a link between anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and climate change. "Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."
In addition:
" In December of 2007, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a report based on 16 months of investigation and 27,000 pages of documentation. According to the summary: "The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policy makers and the public about the dangers of global warming." The report described how the White House appointed former petroleum industry lobbyist Phil Cooney as head of the Council on Environmental Quality. The report states "There was a systematic White House effort to minimize the significance of climate change by editing climate change reports. CEQ Chief of Staff Phil Cooney and other CEQ officials made at least 294 edits to the Administration's Strategic Plan of the Climate Change Science Program to exaggerate or emphasize scientific uncertainties or to de-emphasize or diminish the importance of the human role in global warming."
Thats just great, an oil lobbyist as head of the COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY!!!!!!!!!!! HOW DO YOU APPOINT HIM TO A ROLE THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A WATCH DOG FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. His interests are big oil's interest, he doesn't give a shit about the environment.
How much more evidence do you need that we have all been mislead by this administration. I beg you to go read the rest of this its horrendous what this administration has gotten away with.
Clinton got a blow job and got impeached, Bush has a 65 page rap sheet of things a hell of a lot worse than Clinton having sex.
Category: Global Warming | News | Politics | environment
Sabres Go Green
I love the Sabres Go Green initiative. Its a great community project and its a great way for the NHL to do something unique for its own self. Paul Gaustad was the one who origially presented the Idea to the Sabres.
Category: Global Warming
I Should Have Invested in Oil
Oil back in 1999, just 9 years ago almost to the day was in the $13-$14 a barrel range and for the year was averaging $11.22. If I had $10,000 on me back then, I would have invested in oil. In just 9 years my $10,000 would have grown to over $100,000 and then some.
Oil is going up and up, we may get a small break here and there but for the most part, its not slowing its ascent. Cheap oil is gone and Id be surprised if it went below the 100 mark again. Of course I was listening to Rush Limbaugh base the price of oil on what he calls the Global Warming "Hoax" and that it is global warmings fault that oil prices are so high and food prices are so high. It couldn't possibly be that we are reaching a tipping point where the population of this planet is finally outstripping its ability to provide enough resources for us. We all know that oil is a finite resource, but so is food, there are 6+ billion mouths to feed on this planet and we are already seeing a lot of the warning signs in India and Africa. Prices are going up because things are scarce, and just maybe it would make sense that instead of being a society that is known for being wasteful, maybe Limbaugh and his followers should follow the definition of conservative and actually CONSERVE resources.Category: Global Warming | News
Water a Scarcity in Southwest
Lake Mead is a lake in the southwest that is more than just a tourist attraction. It provides water to 8 million people in San Diego, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. If this lake dries, the people of this area of the country goes thirsty.
Lake Mead is currently at half capacity and has been drying up due to a strain on the increase demand for water in this area due to increasing population and increasingly dry years due to climate change.
This really should be no secret that there is a water shortage in the desert and that global warming is only making it drier. Moutain glaciers that should be feeding the lake are shrinking, less mountain snow and ice equals less water in Lake Mead.
This is not an area where the problem will be fixed easily either. The solution will have to be conservation and sacrifice. Its a problem that many should have seen coming, The Colorado river has been stressed for years now and doesn't even end in the Gulf of California any more, it ends about 100 miles short of where it did because the communites of the southwest have grown and put a strain on a scarce resource. That in combination with the increasing problems from global warming and climate change spells trouble in the coming years.
In the picture above you can see how far the lake has gone down on the sides. According to some reports I have read, the lake is losing 10 ft a year. That is staggering and shows just how much we can change our environment by abusing natures resources.
Category: Global Warming | Science
6 Degrees
I will be tuned in tonight to The National Geographic for 6 Degrees Could Change the World, a documentary about what could happen if we allow global warming to continue unchecked. Some would say hog wash, why listen to scientists, the Earth warms all the time and cools and has its cycles,
I say if you pay attention to your doctor then you are listening to a scientist who knows about the human body, scientists who study this phenomenon while trying to predict what is happening on a global scale may not be right in terms of locations that will be greatly affected but they have a broad picture about what we are going to experience if this thing continues and we don't start thinking cleaner sources of fuel and decreasing how we treat the planet. They are diagnosing the Earth that is sick.
The signals are already there, last summer we saw that the rate of melt in the arctic is worse than expected, the ice on Greenland, the ice melt that is of real concern with increasing global sea levels is melting faster than expected and coral reefs and tropical rain forests are already showing signs of stress and in some areas the tropical rain forests are beyond the point of no return due to slash and burn methods and urbanization.
So, I will be watching this because A) it interests me and B) its another perspective on what is probably going to happen unless we change our consumption of resources and how we live. Even if we do change we are probably going to see some damage before it gets better. These are the trailers for tonights program:
This last one, talks about what we can do. Most of it, is common sense, things that my mother used to yell at me for, turn off the lights if you are not in your room, turn off the TV if no one is watching it. Simple stuff that many Americans take for granted....
Category: Global Warming
