Comments on: The Recession (Part 2)

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:28:22 +0000

So why is he so sure that the hot world is on its way, within decades? “Compare the Earth with an iced drink,” he says. “The drink stays cold until the last of the ice melts …a great deal of the heat of global heating has gone into warming that huge lump of water, the ocean, and into melting ice.” This could help to explain why temperatures have not yet risen. The danger is that they will rise rapidly once the ice disappears, causing the Earth to flip into a permanently hotter state. Camilla Cavendish

He is James Lovelock.

Climate scientists once were befuddled about why Antarctica seemed, if anything, to be cooling while the rest of the world got toastier. It turns out the bottom of the world has been warming after all.
“More is happening than we thought, and it’s happening faster,” said Douglas Martinson, who studies the impact of polar oceans on global climate at Columbia University.
Average winter temperatures on the Antarctica peninsula – changing more than the rest of the continent – have risen 11 degrees since 1950. That’s five times the global warm-up and disastrous to the ice shelves that hang over water and act as corks to bottle up glaciers on land.
In 1950, the Wilkins Ice Shelf was bonded to Antarctica with a 62-mile wide block of ice. Now it clings by an hourglass-shaped link that narrows to just a third of a mile. The Jamaica-size shelf could tumble into the ocean any time. SCOTT CANON

Amazon forests are a key but poorly understood component of the global carbon cycle. If, as anticipated, they dry this century, they might accelerate climate change through carbon losses and changed surface energy balances. We used records from multiple long-term monitoring plots across Amazonia to assess forest responses to the intense 2005 drought, a possible analog of future events. Affected forest lost biomass, reversing a large long-term carbon sink, with the greatest impacts observed where the dry season was unusually intense. Relative to pre-2005 conditions, forest subjected to a 100-millimeter increase in water deficit lost 5.3 megagrams of aboveground biomass of carbon per hectare. The drought had a total biomass carbon impact of 1.2 to 1.6 petagrams (1.2 x 1015 to 1.6 x 1015 grams). Amazon forests therefore appear vulnerable to increasing moisture stress, with the potential for large carbon losses to exert feedback on climate change. (New study}

We now hear about a new deal from Obama. Oh we need a new deal alright and is it happening? No it sure isn’t more band-aids. We are not in Kansas anymore and we will not get a second chance on this. Just like the Wilkins Ice Shelf clinging on so are we and these plans from policy makers are plans being made for nobody. The profit-oriented hucksters on this planet are not to bright and when confronted with the thinkers the truth the knowledge there response is USA USA USA drill baby drill no more tax’s. High school stuff and not very good at that. We now see Obama is a Socialist with Marxist tendencies and we will all be saying comrade soon to each other what bullshit. The banks do need to be nationalized and fossil fuels need to be taxed with money going back to we the people and an ongoing World Summit on these problems and that is just a start. These so called leaders need to get graduate from high school and get real. To listen to the news on TV these talking heads or business leaders policy makers act like little children. Put your boots on and think of this as kind of a war. Well going to have a cup of coffee now and see what Rush said today or Jim Crammer said about Obama and what Obama say’s back in this kind of optical delusion of consciousness they think is so fun.

By: MrCynic3

MrCynic3 — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:35:35 +0000

arjay,

Please stop listening to Rush Limbaugh and his drivel. There is nothing
wrong in temporary borrowing and deficit spending as long as the
money is spent wisely and on helping the people and productive things.
You didn’t complain when the banksters got and getting tons of money,
you didn’t complain when your beloved Bush amassed trillions of dollars in debt.
To follow your thinking , this country will have maybe 30% unemployment and maybe more with severe hardship to tens of
millions.

By: Barry

Barry — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:55:24 +0000

well, arjay – we are indeed in for a rocky ride – thanks to Conservative Republican economics. They ran up this debt – and we have nothing to show for it but multi-faceted disaster. Priming the pump is an age-old Keynesian way to mitigate the disaster. The problem may be that that Friedmanite economics may have pushed the country over the edge of no return. But they’ve done that before.
Big country needs big gov’t. After all, whose gonna build water treatment plants? Whose gonna test for Salmonella? And whose going to do these things without demanding huge profits? After the Salmonella/peanut butter fiasco some one in Georgia said inspection should be turned over to the private sector. That’s how the Repubs operate. Destroy the public sector – and then claim it doesn’t work. This guy said it would even be cheaper for us because after all, companies would bid on it. Just what we need – public health in the hands of the lowest bidder.

By: arjay

arjay — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 18:56:32 +0000

this guy is a fully paid member of the AOSC (awning on stomach club – needed so that when he looks out from where his head is stuck the sun wont blind him).

it is easy to list many “needs” for governmental expenditures. it would only take me a few minutes to greatly expand on his litany.

but as anyone whos borrowed and spent too much knows full well the solution for digging oneself out of such a hole is definitely NOT borrowing and spending even more. there is simply no way to get out of debt by borrowing.

the problem in this country – and most especially for governments at all levels – is that theyve borrowed and spent too much. the solution is not for increases in governmental expenditures – no matter how attractive to some – but a substantial REDUCTION in the overall level of government in this country. until and unless we do such, we are in for a very rocky ride on a very long economic road.