DuPont, Caterpillar, Alcoa, US subsidiary of BP, saying GLOBAL WARMING IS NOW!

The chemical giant DuPont, the bulldozer company Caterpillar, the aluminium producer Alcoa and the US subsidiary of BP, will all join with environmental groups next week to pressure the Bush Administration to get serious about global warming. STORY HERE OR HERE

The age of global warming denial, meanwhile, also appears to be drawing to a close. Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest oil company, has cut its funding to groups who argue global warming is a hoax, and is now working to develop strategies it can accept for emissions reduction.

It’s about time. Hell, even the religious fundamentalist dinosaurs know global warming is upon us. “It’s time for us to become good stewards of the earth,” as one of my very best friends, a religious liberal, told me two days ago. “God would want us to do that – protect our earth that he created.”

Actually, it would help change the dialogue if we changed the “global warming” label to “global climate change.” There’s always a small handfull of pesky oil company employees who troll around the blogosphere, posting about how the winters are colder than they can ever remember in Houston, and about lost orange crops in southern California. I could play their game and remind them that I’ve seen much colder winters here in Texas, those of 1983, when the temps didn’t get above freezing for 12 days, or that of 1987 when ice storms brought down 38 steel communications towers in West Texas and wreaked havoc with electricity and telephones for hundreds of towns. (Hello, Mick and “Ethanol.”) This winter is not fun, but it’ s not as bad as others I’ve had to work through.

“Rapid global climate change” would be a better nomenclature for what greenhouse gases are doing. The north and south poles are melting. Bears are not hibernating in Siberia anymore. Birds are returning to the New England states earlier every year, as are blossoming fruit trees.

BUT, some places around the globe will see colder winters. Canada, for one, as the polar ice caps melt and let arctic winds blow across open sea waters instead of ice with its insulating properties. England and the northern European countries will see colder winters because the Atlantic Gulf Stream water currents won’t carry as much tropical warming that far north anymore. And Houston, Texas may get more freaky ice storms?

Global Warming, Rapid Global Climate Change, call it what you want, just don’t call it a hoax. It is here upon us. A few dinosaurs and employees of oil companies will continue to troll and whine, and to be scorned by all thoughtful, intelligent people.

By 2040 Greenhouse Gases … Open Arctic Sea in Summers

!!!! Alarm Bells – anyone hear them over the din of Limbaugh, FOX News, Coulter, DeLay, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, body counts, ….?
By 2040, Greenhouse Gases Could Lead to an Open Arctic Sea in Summers ANDREW C. REVKIN of the NY Times is writing about an article from the journal Geophysical Research Letters,

Basically, we’ll have shipping lanes from Atlantic to Pacific oceans north of Canada. Folks will be buying land in northern Canada, and building ports and fuelling stations up there, as the polar bears begin to run out of territory. The problem will continue to get worse as the darker colored ocean waters will absorb more heat than the white ice. Ironically, the winters will be colder, as blowing winds pick up more cold from the melted waters than from the frozen ice.

You really need to look at the map in the Times article to see how huge this summer ice melt will be. Almost the entire northern polar ice cap will be melted in the summer, leaving a small amount of summer ice to the north of Eastern Canada and Greenland.

Meanwhile, in my home state of Texas, we are being hijacked by the pinheaded Governor Rick Perry who is fast tracking the permits for 11 new coal-burning power plants. These are not the new, cleaner coal burners, he is letting them build 11 OLD TECHNOLOGY COAL PLANTS!!!!!!

With the foresight and intelligence of Rick Perry, I’m starting to think that he’s ready for the national scene in ‘08. Yeah, that’s the ticket, “PERRY FOR PREZ IN ‘08.” It would be a relief to get him out of Texas. Poor Washington.

If only we’d simply forgotten about Iraq after we’d finished up in Afghanistan, we could have gone to war against global warming.

IF ONLY WE’D DEVELOPED AN ENERGY POLICY IN THE 70′S.

If only we’d been as smart as Brazil. They were quick to react to the oil embargoes of the early 70’s, and started on a national program to convert their vehicles to ethanol. By last year the transition was complete. Every vehicle in Brazil runs on ethanol produced from sugar cane, which has a higher per acre yield than corn. In fact, Brazil is now an exporter of ethanol.

If only, … aaaahhhhh, But no, the U.S. is still dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and getting worse, and soon to be competing with a China on the fast track to consumerism and demands for more oil. So we are trying to permanantly embed ourselves in the Middle East to bring democracy to the region, rid it of WMD, kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people so that we preserve our own national interests over there. Can you spell oil with me kids, O-I-L. Very Good!

My how the time flies when I’m off on a good rant. Thank God and Little George Bush that we’re winning in Iraq!!! We’re winning? Right? Little George????