tagged w/ Impending Doom
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All joking aside though, a lot of us are going to die in the near future. Cheers. I plan on living on a boat equipped with a .50.
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Scientists are to outline dramatic evidence that global warming threatens the planet in a new and unexpected way – by triggering earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches and volcanic eruptions.
Reports by international groups of researchers – to be presented at a London conference next week – will show that climate change, caused by rising outputs of carbon dioxide from vehicles, factories and power stations, will not only affect the atmosphere and the sea but will alter the geology of the Earth.
Melting glaciers will set off avalanches, floods and mud flows in the Alps and other mountain ranges; torrential rainfall in the UK is likely to cause widespread erosion; while disappearing Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets threaten to let loose underwater landslides, triggering tsunamis that could even strike the seas around Britain.
At the same time the disappearance of ice caps will change the pressures acting on the Earth's crust and set off volcanic eruptions across the globe. Life on Earth faces a warm future – and a fiery one.
"Not only are the oceans and atmosphere conspiring against us, bringing baking temperatures, more powerful storms and floods, but the crust beneath our feet seems likely to join in too," said Professor Bill McGuire, director of the Benfield Hazard Research Centre, at University College London (UCL).
"Maybe the Earth is trying to tell us something," added McGuire, who is one of the organisers of UCL's Climate Forcing of Geological Hazards conference, which will open on 15 September. Some of the key evidence to be presented at the conference will come from studies of past volcanic activity. These indicate that when ice sheets disappear the number of eruptions increases, said Professor David Pyle, of Oxford University's earth sciences department.
"The last ice age came to an end between 12,000 to 15,000 years ago and the ice sheets that once covered central Europe shrank dramatically," added Pyle. "The impact on the continent's geology can by measured by the jump in volcanic activity that occurred at this time."All joking aside though, a lot of us are going to die in the near future. Cheers. I... more
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While we procrastinate and hold off on drastically reducing our damage output,... the Arctic ice answers by melting faster than expected. New studies say that within 30 years,... most of the Arctic ice will be gone. Disgusting. That missing ice will cause dangerous warmth, species interruption and countless other doom-scenarios.
From Time Magazine, 03 April 2009: The Joint Institute For The Study Of Atmosphere And Ocean and The National Oceanic And The Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory continue to show, with scientific computer models and plain ol' prognostication, the Arctic ice troubles - like lower yearly ice coverage, record melting and higher surrounding temperatures. The past 6 years has been the worst span of time for the Arctic,... with no abrupt solution on the horizon. (a horizon that will soon rise)
Every time I read this kinda stuff,... my stomach drops,... and I think we're screwed. But futility shouldn't mean we stop trying. Maybe we can still make things a little better - with some determination, sacrifice and elbow grease. I'd say the worst part,... is people too naive, proud, greedy or skeptic to see what's happening. What's obvious to some,... is a scam to others. The only way it's not too late,... is if we ALL unite to at least try to solve our biggest problem.While we procrastinate and hold off on drastically reducing our damage output,... the... more
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Father of the Gaia Theory --not to mention certified donavon-- mister James Lovelock, blames too-much-talk as the reason we're all basically doomed, before he pops out to space later this year for his 90th birthday party aboard Richard Branson's Thunderbird 2.
[from New Scientist:]
"I'm an optimistic pessimist. I think it's wrong to assume we'll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It's happening again.
"I don't think humans react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what's coming up. Kyoto was 11 years ago. Virtually nothing's been done except endless talk and meetings."Father of the Gaia Theory --not to mention certified donavon-- mister James Lovelock,... more
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GRENOBLE, France (AFP) – Two British climbers, including the youngest Briton to conquer Everest, fell hundreds of metres to their deaths on Mont Blanc, French police said Sunday.
The two men, Rob Gauntlett and James Atkinson, both 21, were found under the Gervasutti route up Tacul, a 4,360-metre peak in the Mont Blanc massif of the French Alps, after Saturday's fatal fall, police told AFP.
On May 17, 2006, Gauntlett became the first British teenager to reach the highest point in the world, the 8,848 metre peak of Everest in the Nepalese Himalayas.
He celebrated his 19th birthday at Everest base camp, joined by his school friend James Hooper, also 19.
They were also named National Geographic Adventure magazine's Adventurers of the Year in 2008 for travelling from the North Geomagnetic Pole, starting in Greenland, to the South Magnetic Pole using only human and natural power -- skis, bikes and boats.
The pair were both on holiday in the Alps this weekend when tragedy struck, and both Gauntlett and Atkinson died.
Speaking to Britain's Press Association news agency from Chamonix, Hooper said of Gauntlett: "I'm obviously devastated but I'm just trying to remember the fact that he was a wonderful person and he inspired me and others in so many different ways."
The youngest climber to ever ascend Everest was a 15-year-old Nepalese Sherpa called Temba Tsheri, who succeeded in May 2001 despite having lost five fingers to frostbite on a previous attempt.GRENOBLE, France (AFP) – Two British climbers, including the youngest Briton to... more
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Barack Obama suggested he's not likely to actively pursue criminal charges against national security officials who were directly involved in unlawful interrogations or wire-tapping, and said it would be difficult to quickly close down Guantanamo Bay.
On Guantanamo — which he repeatedly promised to shutter during the campaign — Obama, in an interview on Sunday with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week," reiterated his intent to do just that but also sounded a pragmatic note.
"That's a challenge," the president-elect said about the prospect of closing down to the detainee facility within the first 100 days of taking office. "I think it's going to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do.
On the question of prosecuting crimes that may have been committed during the Bush presidency in the course of the war on terror, Obama continued the theme of "looking forward as opposed to backwards" he took on the campaign trail and reaffirmed since winning the presidency last November.
While aimed at attracting consensus from a broader electorate, the position is not exactly what many in the liberal base of his party would prefer.
As Stephanopoulos noted, the most asked question on Obama's own transition website relates to investigating the "crimes" of the Bush administration.
Asked if he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate such matters as warrantless wire-tapping and torture, Obama demurred.
"We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth," he said. "And obviously we're going to be looking at past practices, and I don't believe that anybody is above the law.
"On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you've got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don't want them to suddenly feel like they've got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering."
Pressed, Obama said twice more that he wanted to get "things right in the future, as opposed looking at what we got wrong in the past."
Asked specifically about the idea of a "9/11 Commission with independent subpoena power" to look at torture and warrantless wiretapping during the Bush years, Obama said, "We have not made final decisions, but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing. That doesn't mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation's going to be to move forward."Barack Obama suggested he's not likely to actively pursue criminal charges... more
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached Friday by Illinois lawmakers furious that he turned state government into a "freak show," setting the stage for an unprecedented trial in the state Senate that could get him thrown out of office.
The 114-1 vote in the Illinois House came exactly a month after Blagojevich's arrest on charges that included trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat. The debate took less than 90 minutes, and not a single legislator rose in defense of the governor, who was jogging in the snow in Chicago.
Later, a defiant Blagojevich insisted again that he committed no crime, and declared: "I'm going to fight every step of the way." He portrayed himself as a victim of political payback by the House for his efforts to extend health care and other relief to the ordinary people of Illinois.
"The causes of the impeachment are because I've done things to fight for families," the 52-year-old Democrat said at an extraordinary news conference where he surrounded himself with some of the people he claimed to have helped, including a man in a wheelchair and a transplant recipient. He took no questions.
Blagojevich becomes the first U.S. governor in more than 20 years to be impeached. Arizona's Evan Mecham was impeached, convicted and removed from office in 1988 for trying to thwart an investigation into a death threat allegedly made by an aide.
No other Illinois governor has ever been impeached, despite the state's storied history of graft. Blagojevich's immediate predecessor, George Ryan, is behind bars for corruption, and two earlier governors also went to prison.SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached Friday by Illinois... more
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A full 90 percent of donations to fund Barack Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration have come from well-heeled fundraisers — including Wall Street executives whose companies have received federal bailout money.
A total of 207 fundraisers have collected $24.8 million of the $27.3 million in donations disclosed by Obama through Thursday, according to an analysis by Public Citizen commissioned by The Wall Street Journal.
Slightly more than 2,000 donors accounted for the $27.3 million raised, but 378 of those people each contributed the maximum $50,000 allowed by Obama, raising almost 70 percent of the total, or $18.9 million, the analysis found.
Wall Street employees have been the largest single source of private donations, and many of the contributions have been channeled through financial-services executives who have put together bundles of donations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“The preponderance of large donors and the fact that so many come from an industry receiving government handouts comes as the president-elect has sought to keep his inauguration free of special interests,” The Journal observed.
Bundlers from the financial sector include executives from Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., two firms that have accepted billions of dollars each in bailout money from the federal government.
Obama’s presidential campaign smashed all previous fundraising records, raking in more than an astounding $650 million from some 3 million donors.A full 90 percent of donations to fund Barack Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration have... more
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On this past Monday, yet another harbinger of Climate Change was announced. According to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic ice has a chance to reach record lows by the end of this melting season. The Chukchi Sea, just northwest of Alaska, and the East Siberian Seas, just east of Russia, seem to be the areas most damaged by this current ice-retreat.
On 25 August 2008, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, based at the University of Colorado, announced findings that Artic ice has reached an all time low,... previously set in 2005. Their scientists have stated that the mass of Arctic ice has fell below 2 million square miles,... and,... unlike 2005, the melting doesn't seem to be haulting for the end of summer.
As the Arctic ice continues to vanish,... polar bear habitats/populations diminish, heat-absorbing seawater is exposed, water levels change too drastically, and every part of Earth is affected.
Sadly, many scientists studying Climate Change foresee an Arctic with no summer ice,... by 2030!!!On this past Monday, yet another harbinger of Climate Change was announced. According... more
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