mrneoluddite/environment

This is a no brainer if you bothered to think about it, but seeing the graph is powerful stuff.

From the page: "Palin doesn't believe global warming is man-made.
At every campaign stop, McCain says that human activity is the driving force behind global climate change. For the first time in its history, the GOP caught up to the rest of the planet by accepting the reality of man-made climate change in its 2008 platform. It reads, "The same human activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere," and "increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the earth."
But Palin is among the conservative fringe that rejects the scientific consensus. According to the Washington Post, "Sarah Palin told voters there she wasn't sure climate change wasn't simply part of a natural warming cycle." Palin told the conservative Web site NewsMax, "I'm not one ... who would attribute it to being man-made."
This may help explain why Palin announced this year that Alaska would sue the Department of the Interior over its decision to add the polar bear to its list of endangered species. If people are "over-reacting" to global warming, as Palin has said, then the polar bears' rapidly dwindling habitat should be FINE and those bears can FEND for themselves. As Palin explained in an op-ed in the New York Times, "I strongly believe that adding them to the list is the wrong move at this time... The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, has argued that global warming and the reduction of polar ice severely threatens the bears' habitat and their existence. In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future." "

From the page: "Moreover, on a relatively high-profile environmental issue, Palin actually went to court to take on the Bush administration from the right, objecting to the president's decision to list polar bears on the endangered species list. (The UK Independent, in its understated form, noted that Palin "has an environmental policy so toxic it would make the incumbent, George Bush, blush.")"

From the page: "Palin is also promoting off shore oil drilling and increased mining in sensitive areas of Alaska, all of which would have a lifespan of far fewer years than my grandfather walked on this earth and which would not even make a smidgen of an impact on national consumption rates or longer term sustainability. McCain was once a champion of protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and it is sad to see, that with Palin on board, he is no longer vocal and perhaps even giving up on what he believes in to satisfy Palinâ€s position."

From the page: "Drowning in Garbage
By Michelle Heimburger
Mon, September 8, 2008

Litter -- from sea glass to bottle caps to remnants of fishing lines -- washing up on our beaches has become a familiar sight. It's easy to think that that debris must be all of the marine litter out there, and eventually it makes its way back to shore. We like to imagine the vast expanse of the oceans to be pristine and unsullied. But the reality is that the seas are not free from the same litter and pollution we see on land.

In the middle of the Pacific, a circular ocean current called the Pacific Gyre swirls around a region about the size of Africa. Long avoided by sailors for stranding ships in its doldrums, today the spiraling current collects a different cargo: plastic. Everything that floats is drawn into this vortex, creating a marine dead zone twice the size of Texas, now commonly known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Plastic makes up 90% of marine litter and does not biodegrade. Instead, it slowly breaks down into smaller bits of plastic that never disappear. Eventually it becomes tiny pellets called "nurdles," which cannot be digested -- but that doesn't stop animals from eating them. Birds, fish, and marine mammals in the middle of this toxic zone have a steady diet of plastic litter -- which turns deadly when sharp pieces of debris rupture their stomachs, or when the mass of cigarette lighters, bottle caps, and fishing nets grows too large and causes starvation. In the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, uncontaminated food can be hard to find: Researchers estimate there are six pounds of plastic for every pound of plankton.

But it's not just distant sea creatures that suffer the consequences. The floating plastic mass also collects chemicals that don't break down in seawater, like DDT, PCBs, and nonylphenols, which cause hormonal disruptions in the animals that eat them -- and the ones that eat those animals. Those of us at the top of the food chain ought to start worrying."

From the page: "Sailing the Seas of Free
By Chris Lindsey
Tue, April 29, 2008, 12:01 am PDT

Bargains are great, but getting something for free is divine.

To celebrate Earth Day last week, we added new sites to the Freecycling and Free Stuff areas of the Yahoo! Directory. And let us tell you, after experiencing just a little of what our Bay Area community has to give, we're hooked on freesailing!

"What on Earth (day) is 'freesailing?,'" you ask? Well, it's like garage sailing, only you don't have to be mortified as your mother demands that you to try on those "perfectly good" jeans she found in some stranger's driveway. And, you can do it from the comfort of your own living room! In one day, we watched some lucky freecyclers get a pair of leather Crate and Barrel throw pillows (which sounded suspiciously similar to an item spotted on Ebay later that day), a pair of Motorola walkie-talkies, a set of 2" wood blinds, and a hardly-used Rival food processor. And that's not all! Some Flickrers have a freecycle treasures group with lots of pictures and stories of other free seekers who were blessed with some perfectly-priced treasures.

So, do you want some manna from heaven, too? The best way to make sure no one else gets your free goodies is to keep your eye on a couple of different internet freesailing resources. First, the green folks at green.yahoo.com can help you find a local freecycling group that'll send you email notifications whenever someone has an unexpected gift. Also, with literally hundreds of new freebie posts every day, Craigslist's Free Stuff Classifieds can turn a weekend of consumption into one of freesailing.

For more info, direct yourself here. Go ahead, it's free!"

Scary stuff.

It never ceases to amaze me at how some folks will simply not accept the science and see that human activity is altering the rate of climate change. Even in my own family, bringing up global warming is about as welcome as declaring I'm a democrat.

From the page: "A rate of 1.25 miles a year "doesn't sound like much, but that works out to about 18 feet per day," Caldeira said. "If you think about climate zones shifting northward at this rate, you can imagine squirrels keeping up. But what are oak trees going to do?"