Spring Flowers blooming on a 70 degree January day

[Luke_Wilbur]

My wife woke me up from sleep this morning. "Luke, you need to see our backyard." I got dressed and instantly noticed the warm sun had awakened some of my Spring flowers. Blue bell clusters of Grape Hyacinths were in full bloom next to my Christmas Lights. That something you do not see in January.

 

Well, the year 2006 may go down as the year where Americans finally took notice of global warming. But, this year may go down as the hotest in record. British climate scientists predict that a resurgent El Niño climate trend combined with higher levels of greenhouse gases could touch off a fresh round of ecological disasters. One of the Arctic’s six major ice shelves has broken off from its island home, Canadian scientists have discovered.

 

In what is being suggested as another indicator of global warming, the 42 square mile Ayles ice shelf broke away Ellesmere Island in 2005, but the event has only recently been discovered. Ice shelves are large stable masses of ice floating on the sea but attached to land for thousands of years.

 

The Northeast is already experiencing rising temperatures consistent with global warming, and dramatic warming is expected later this century. Just how high temperatures rise depends on our heat-trapping emissions.

 

The thermometers below show projected increases in regional average annual temperatures for three time periods: early, mid-, and late twenty-first century. Temperature ranges for each emission scenario represent results from three different climate models.

 

Scientists have predicted the polar region could completely melt in the summer months by 2040. Many scientists say the rising temperatures are the product of global warming that results at least in part from increased emissions of carbon dioxide (CO{+2}) and other "greenhouse gases" from vehicle tailpipes, power plants and other sources.

 

ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue, the Union of Concerned Scientists claims in a new report published Wednesday.

 

According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.

 

"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."

 

I think it is really time for us to make this a priority issue.

[BlingBling]

According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.

I think it is really time for us to make this a priority issue.

 

ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson has promised investors that it would "soften" its public image on global warming, but made clear that it would not actually be changing its basic position. Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst who was at the meeting with Tillerson, noted, "Although the tone has changed, the substance remains the same." Tillerson also attacked Royal Society in Britain, stating it had "inaccurately and unfairly" depicted Exxon as a climate change skeptic. Exxon told the Guardian that it plans to work on explaining better its basic position on global warming: "Greenhouse gas emissions are one of the factors that contribute to climate change. This is an extremely complex issue but even with the scientific uncertainties, the risk (of global warming) is so great that it justifies taking action." But Exxon's record shows anything but action on climate change. According to a recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Exxon has "funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science." The big-oil front group the Competitive Enterprise Institute has received $1.6 million from Exxon since 1998, using the funding to distort global warming research and attack any meaningful action to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

[Luke_Wilbur]

I was driving past Blessed Sacrament Elementary School when I saw this Cherry Tree Blooming. In the Windows were two paper snowmen taped onto the windows. I remembered how much I wanted it to snow when I was a kid. After a storm our school would close for the day and we would get to go sledding down Holy Cross Hill. I hope our children will have the same experience.