Home > Jay Bookman > Archives > 2008 > July > 17
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Turning up the heat on global-warming deniers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President Bush acknowledges that global warming is real and that mankind is a significant contributor. John McCain takes it further, campaigning on the need for “mandatory emission reduction targets and timetables.”
Nonetheless, like Custer at Little Big Horn and the Jewish zealots at Masada, a small if dwindling band of global warming deniers continues to fight on, insisting that as long as they hold out against the hordes of smock-clad scientists, no consensus can be said to exist.
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, the EPA just released a new report on the likely impact of global warming in the years to come on human health and welfare:
“Cold days and cold nights are very likely to become much less frequent over North America. Substantial areas of North America are likely to have more frequent droughts of greater severity. Hurricane wind speeds, rainfall intensity and storm surge levels are likely to increase. Other changes include measurable sea-level rise and increases in the occurrence of coastal and riverine flooding.”
As The Washington Post reported:
“It’s going to be hotter, it’s going to be hotter sooner in the year than it was in the past,” said Kristie L. Ebi, an adjunct professor at George Washington University and one of the report’s lead authors. She said that young people living in the D.C. area now will notice a difference before they reach middle age.
“They’re going to look back and think about how nice the summers used to be,” Ebi said. “Within 20, 30 years, on average, the [public] should notice that it’s warmer.”
So step on up, deniers. Tell us again about the sunspots, and why Greenland is called Greenland, and the 30,000 signatures on that petition, and how Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t act alone and the spaceships they’ve got stored out in Area 51.
