Am I the only one who sees the decline in the use of oil as a good thing? I'm really proud of human beings for finally taking control of their lives over the use of oil consumption. The places that depend on exporting oil as their only source of income should have been thinking of other ways to make money. One way or another, the demand for oil was going to fall. I'm hoping it keeps falling. That is the point isn't it? Trying to save the planet from global warming? Achieving energy independence?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/worldbusiness/25oil.html

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Thomas Friedman has written an excellent article in this week's NYT magazine section. Given the interest shown in the last Faith in Action blog series on Environmental Stewardship, I am sure that everyone here at CCN will want to read it.

After reading it, I think that addressing Global Climate Change must rank 2nd after the Iraq War in the list of items the next President of the United States must solve.

Wes Clark is the man to do it -- the rest of the lawyers and politicians in the current presidential race will not get it right.

crossposted from DailyKos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/9/134749/5586

Global Warming and the Iraq War have the same root cause: powerful corporate leaders telling the White House and Congress how to run the country. Global Warming and the Iraq war are twin failures of neoliberal/neoconservative politics.

The trouble starts when the man or woman sitting in the White House meets behind closed doors with the head of General Motors or Exxon or whomever to decide for 300 million people how to use our tax dollars.

The graphic shows the 2 foot-diameter flyers at L1. They are transparent, but blur out transmitted light into a donut, as shown for the background stars. The transmitted sunlight is also spread out, so it misses the Earth. This way of removing the light avoids radiation pressure, which would otherwise degrade the L1 orbit. (Illustration: Courtesy of UA Steward Observatory)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061104090409.htm

A BIG recommend. :) I've been watching some fantastic specials on LinkTV.

Below, Mother Jones Radio (in partnership with LinkTV) interviewed Julia Whitty, who wrote its featured article, "The Last Days of Our Ocean." In the article and video interview (below). Whitty details how global warming adversely impacts our oceans, and how this will dramatically change our environment, ecosystems and way of life, regardless of where we live (assuming that it hasn't done so already). For example, she describes how the interoceanic conveyor belt influences climate all over the world and how 210 Million years ago it did resulting in extinctions of 90& of marine life and 70% of terrestrial life. She also mentioned how warmer oceans can alter its acidity, which can then inhibit shell formation and plankton development (a primary food source in marine ecosystems).  In addition, she shares other interesting insights on "drift net fishing" which only aggravates this problem; on pollution, which includes mercury contamination to both fish and artic animals, increases in oceanic dead zones, and rapid destruction of coral reefs; and on international/corporate interests, who look forward towards a more "welcoming" territory in the Artic region, as they seek oil/drilling, mineral and shipping rights along the "Northwest Passage."   She does, however, include proposals towards real solutions; but notes that's up to our scientists, general public and our leaders to take the political will to move foward towards resolving these concerns. The interview is 30 minutes and well worth the time! :)

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Earth Focus :: The Fate of the Ocean (Quicktime video streaming)

Our oceans are under attack, and approaching a point of no return. Can we survive if the seas go silent? In this special edition of Earth Focus in partnership with Mother Jones Magazine, author and filmmaker, Julia Whitty, reports on the catastrophic effect global warming is having on our oceans.
Produced by J. Silvio with Link TV

As I'm sure many of you are now aware, a NAS committee submitted its assessment on Climate Reconstruction models, as requested by Congress. It's mostly good news for the scientific community, in that it validates the overwhelming concensus of their findings, but it could still be used to politically, imo.

Based on the report, the committee concluded with "high confidence" that the "hockey stick" model, as first proposed by Michael Mann ('98) and subsequently validated by other climatology researchers, accurately depicts global warming and climate trends that has occurred over the past few decades. Generally, these studies do support evidence that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming". And specifically, it's been the fossil fuel emissions of CO2 and methane (CH4) into the atmosphere that have contributed to the highest global mean surface temperatures (ie global warming) ever recorded over the last 400 years. Of note, 2005 was the hottest year on record.

From one of the scientists at Real Climate, disgusted with something that occurred on CNN recently, saying that we need politicians who are both engaging and have a solid grasp of the science behind global warming to counter these jokers.

I think I know just the guy, ;-)... Calling Wes!

Here's what "raypierre" said in a comment (his response within the brackets):

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I like to debate the finer points of this subject, where there might be legitimate theories to explore and expand on, but when contrarians, either lay or scientist contrarians propose dumb ideas, they should be responded with the clearest logic possible. I see how bad ideas remain in the populace, how sound science gets buried, as another recent example, a contrarian proponent having the ears of millions suggests something really dumb like where are those 200,000 year old cars?

Today, we released our final installment on global warming.

We hope you enjoyed this series on global warming. I find these summary segments lend themselves well to getting folks interested in ClarkCasts b/c it's an overview.

If you have iTunes 4.9 installed, you can subscribe to the ClarkCast via the iTunes Music Store. Click here for a iTunes shortcut to the ClarkCast.

Click to subscribe to ClarkCasts or click here for help and more information

Or click here for a direct download.

Please discuss the ClarkCast here. Let us know what you think. 

It's Monday. That means we have another ClarkCast!

Continuing on our theme on Global Climate Change, this week's ClarkCast has voices from America discussing the impact global warming is having on their lives. Earth Day is coming soon, so have a listen.

If you have iTunes 4.9 installed, you can subscribe to the ClarkCast via the iTunes Music Store. Click here for a iTunes shortcut to the ClarkCast.

Click to subscribe to ClarkCasts or click here for help and more information

Or click here for a direct download.

Listen to "Common Voices" on Global Warming and discuss it here. 

[Update] Also, I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to call in to record their pieces. If you didn't make it in this time, there will be many other opportunities.