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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Thursday 12 April 2012
This election season will likely be marked by more extreme weather events, more massive loss of life, and billions of dollars in damages.
The Long, Hot March of Climate Change
The Pentagon knows it. The world’s largest insurers know it. Now, governments may be overthrown because of it. It is climate change, and it is real. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last month was the hottest March on record for the United States since 1895, when records were first kept, with average temperatures of 8.6 degrees F above average. More than 15,000 March high-temperature records were broken nationally. Drought, wildfires, tornadoes and other extreme weather events are already plaguing the country.
Across the world in the Maldives, rising sea levels continue to threaten this Indian Ocean archipelago. It is the world’s lowest-lying nation, on average only 1.3 meters above sea level. The plight of the Maldives gained global prominence when its young president, the first-ever democratically elected there, Mohamed Nasheed, became one of the world’s leading voices against climate change, especially in the lead-up to the 2009 U.N. climate-change summit in Copenhagen. Nasheed held a ministerial meeting underwater, with his cabinet in scuba gear, to illustrate the potential disaster.
In February, Nasheed was ousted from his presidency at gunpoint. The Obama administration, through State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, said of the coup d’etat, “This was handled constitutionally.” When I spoke to Nasheed last month, he told me: “It was really shocking and deeply disturbing that the United States government so instantly recognized the former dictatorship coming back again. ... The European governments have not recognized the new regime in the Maldives.” There is a parallel between national positions on climate change and support or opposition to the Maldives coup.
Nasheed is the subject of a new documentary, “The Island President,” in which his remarkable trajectory is traced. He was a student activist under the dictatorship of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and was arrested and tortured, along with many others. By 2008, when elections were finally held, Gayoom lost, and Nasheed was elected. As he told me, though: “It’s easy to beat a dictator, but it’s not so easy to get rid of a dictatorship. The networks, the intricacies, the institutions and everything that the dictatorship has established remains, even after the elections.” On the morning of Feb. 7, 2012, under threat of death to him and his supporters from rebelling army generals, Nasheed resigned.
While no direct link has been found yet between Nasheed’s climate activism and the coup, it was clear in Copenhagen in 2009 that he was a thorn in the Obama administration’s side. Nasheed and other representatives from AOSIS, the Alliance of Small Island States, were taking a stand to defend their nations’ very existence, and building alliances with grass-roots groups like 350.org, that challenge corporate-dominated climate policy.
Back in the U.S., March delivered this year’s first weather disaster that caused more than $1 billion in damage, with tornadoes ravaging four central states and killing 41. Dr. Jeff Masters of the weather website Weather Underground blogged about March that “records not merely smashed, but obliterated.” On March 23, conservative Texas Gov. Rick Perry renewed the state of emergency declared there last year as a result of massive droughts.
Texas lists 1,000 of the state’s 4,710 community water systems under restrictions. Spicewood, Texas, population 1,100, has run dry, and is now getting water trucked in. Residents have severe restrictions on water use. But for Perry, restricting corporations whose greenhouse-gas emissions lead to climate change is heresy.
Mitt Romney is on track to be the Republican candidate for president, with the support of former challengers like Perry. They are already attacking President Obama on climate change. The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, has been promoting legislation in statehouses to oppose any climate legislation, and rallying members of Congress to block federal action, especially by hampering the work of the Environmental Protection Agency. As the Center for Media and Democracy has detailed in its “ALEC Exposed” reporting, ALEC is funded by the country’s major polluters, including ExxonMobil, BP America, Chevron, Peabody Energy, and Koch Industries. The Koch brothers have also funded tea-party groups like FreedomWorks, to create the appearance of grass-roots activism.
This election season will likely be marked by more extreme weather events, more massive loss of life, and billions of dollars in damages.
President Nasheed is working to run again for his lost presidency, as President Obama tries to hold on to his. The climate may hang in the balance.
© 2011 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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ABOUT Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of "Breaking the Sound Barrier," recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
21 comments on "The Long, Hot March of Climate Change"
Agreed. There is a misconception that Global wainmrg means every season should be warmer than usual. In the past few months alone, we've had major rainfall, a flash hailstorm and a tornado in NY. Let's hope it's not too late to halt or reverse the damages. We'll have to brace ourselves for more wacky and destructive weather and El Nino may go loco!
April 13, 2012 3:49pm
Dear Segmentis and probably CASnyd3r as well as Larry T. Spencer and others
Contrary to what you may think, all the "deniers" I know read from dissenting scientists or have done their own investigations of the data and don't stoop to GOP press releases. I have yet to see either party talk in terms of science. If you had really researched this subject you would know you have been blindly parroting the death rattles of the Climate Change Complex which has found it increasingly hard to make its case for Man Made CO2 Catastrophic Warming (MMCCW) on the basis of observational science. All that is left is to make the hollow claim that 99.9% of the science world agrees with MMCCW and the remainder are carbon industry stooges.
Suggest for starters reading the accounts of two different researchers who separately and independently investigated this 99.9% contention to realize how hollow that claim is. Read from the last few chapters of "Super Freakonomics". Then try "The Deniers" which contains nothing but the results from surveying hundreds of the "denier" scientists and their science based reasons why they reject in part or totally any high certainty in MMCCW.
I offer you a few challenges. Try to articulate the three strongest scientific reasons as to why you believe with great confidence in the certainty of MMCCW. Then list the three most important science based reasons as to why the "deniers" don't agree with the theory of MMCCW. My guess is you are running with the same shallow level of knowledge of this subject as that of every other adherent of MMCCW I have ever encountered and there have been a bunch. If you cannot at this point meet either challenge it means you are unqualified to even participate in this discussion. But hey maybe you will surprise me as the first I have run into . Hint: don't bother providing proof of global warming. No scientist to my knowledge denies that the earth has gotten warmer in the last 150 years or so. I am talking specifically about MMCCW which is lot different than global warming although they have disingenuously come to be treated as the same thing. I will give you another big hint. The additional greenhouse power of each additional measure of CO2 is less than the previous addition. There is a sort of logarithmic diminishing returns relationship in action and we are well into the low end of the returns. Factor that into your studies.
Here a few more challenges;
Name 5 outstanding scientists in their fields who support MMCCW and 5 who don't. Once you do that we can dialog on an intellectual level and not one of hyperbole.
Regarding money motivations of one side vs the purity of the other consider this: While MMCCW adherents paint "deniers' as tools of the carbon industry somehow they never seem to recognize that climate science was a low funded dimly recognized backwater branch of meteorology before MMCCW came into fashion. Climatology by the way depends on many disciplines and no one scientist is an expert in all the parts. These newly elevated climate scientists are overwhelmingly funded by government whose grant determining bureaucrats have a real stake in any impending disaster whether real or perceived. Wasn’t it Chicago’s current mayor and Obama’s former chief of staff who said it best to the effect of let no crisis go to waste? Money from government is overwhelmingly the biggest source of climate research money and dwarfs all other sources. The IPCC charter (the I stands for inter GOVERNMENT by the way) is to determine the impact of HUMAN activities on climate change but not the causes of climate change. Doesn’t that give pause regarding the objectivity of IPCC pronouncements? One has to be very naive to believe there are no worries regarding the future of IPCC related employment if little in the way of HUMAN causes can dredged up. Where is the incentive to search for truth? Can’t you at least admit there are monetary incentives on both sides of the issue and not just one?
Here are few other things to think about. Climate and weather have always been changing. There is nothing out of the ordinary going on regarding extreme weather, only extreme reporting on any weather related disaster. The droughts of the 30's were far worse than those that exist now. Mention was made of the warmest March since the 1890's as proof of upcoming disaster. Does that person even read what she writes? The 1890's was cooler than now yet it holds the record high for March in the US and before all this industrial CO2 was unleashed! How does this March prove anything? Do some research on the hurricane that hit Long Island in 1937 0r 38 if you want to see real devastation. I have a friend who has shoreline front property only because the previous three streets got washed away by that hurricane. The greatest recorded hurricane surge took place in Mississippi, well over 20 feet in the 1960's (Camile??). Hazel was next in the 1950s, both were records during cooler times. All these are patterns within cycles and bear no particular correlation to global warming let alone MMCCW. Some of the driest windiest times of recent geological history took place during the Younger Dryas a period when the temperature went from balmy to ice age conditions in 5 to 80 years depending on who you read around 12000 years ago
BTW the fact that you use the intensely derogatory term "denier" speaks volumes to the weakness of the Climate Change Complex's case for MMCCW. The term deniers puts the dissenter on the same plain as the Holocaust deniers. What if I happen to be Jewish you bigot? If you can't or are too intellectually lazy to try to counter the message then as all true mental fascists do, you shoot the messenger with a disparaging label so they can be viewed as something less than human. Sad but true many MMCCW adherents are close minded intellectual bigots. If you want to be politically correct I suggest using the term skeptic.
April 13, 2012 7:48am
Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy. You've done a brilliant job over the years on almost every other subject you've addressed. Steer clear of Global Warming! It's all a mistake, as will become increasing clear over the next several years, I believe. As long as the environmental movement dwelt on real pollutants, of which there are plenty, life was good. But now we have gone off the rails. This is actually mainly good news, as trillions of dollars ( much of which would probably have gone to Goldman Sachs traders) will now be saved which would otherwise have been wasted fighting CO2. All the AGW predicting computer models have been wrong. And by the way, tornados are caused by cooling, not warming. Yes, March was very hot, but February quite cool, even cold in many parts of the world, according to NOAA. Before that, dozens died in Japan and hundreds in Europe in dreadful winter weather. Weather is extremely complicated, perhaps no one really understands it.
April 13, 2012 6:25am
Hey, Deniers--are YOU scientists? No? Then why do you continue to spout GOP talking points instead of doing the research? Do you ever think about what motivations might be behind your well-funded, well-organized denial? Like, could it be that oil and gas companies are just plain greedy and don't give a rat's patoot whether we (and our children) live or die? What motivates the scientists? The 99.9% of them that say Global Warming is real, deadly, and man-made? You're being used, and in your ignorance, you're taking the rest of us with you. Shut up and let the experts (not the self-interested corporations) speak for a change, OK? And then consider doing some good in this world in place of the harm you're currently doing.
April 12, 2012 7:48pm
I'm very tired of climate change deniers like some of the commentors here saying record cold temps in some part of the globe disprove man-made CO2 sourced climate change. None of the climate change models claim that the who world is just going to get gradually warmer until we can't stand the temperature. Soaring levels of CO2 are trapping more solar energy in our atmosphere, but the predicted effect is greater extremes in all weather phenomena (hot & cold, wet & dry, winds & storms of all sorts and increasing magnitudes and frequency), and that is exactly what we are seeing. The only errors in the climate change models is that they were made based on conservative assumptions of climate responsiveness and amount of CO2 that would be released, so the actual effects (melting glaciers, rising seas, increased storms, record temperatures & precipitation in both directions, etc) are much stronger and farther along than predicted. We can no longer rely on the weather patterns in recorded history or in the oral traditions of our ancestors. This warm March was welcomed in my state of MI by most everyone I talked to, but just as I feared, it was followed by the usual April freezing conditions, so there will be very little fruit crops this year (our main export) because the plants budded out way to early in March and then froze. Plants can't adapt to the wild weather swings as fast as the climate is changing, and anyone who eats out to find that a matter of concern as even carnivores require plants to feed the animals they eat. I may not be able to prove that every weather effect seen today is the sole direct result of our CO2 emissions, but they are definitely the largest contributing factor, and it is within our power to reign them back into a range that could still leave a habitable planet for future generations. Time to stop arguing cause and effect and take the path of wisdom and caution and make some beneficial lifestyle changes and national policies while there is still time.
April 12, 2012 4:42pm
Hi BENTONMIDDLETON
I have read pros and and a lot more cons regarding Man Made Co2 Catastrophic Warming (MMCCW) but have never heard of global warming due to earth's internal heat. Where in the world did that come from? Everything I have read is that heat escaping from the earth's interior contributes very little to the earth's surface temperature. On the other hand volcanoes play a large role in nature's carbon cycle by emitting enormous amounts of CO2. If you are serious about reporting that Yellowstone is warming up however it suggests a far greater disaster than MMCCW could hope to be. According to either a History channel or PBS documentary Yellowstone is actually an ancient sixty mile wide caldera sitting on a thin crust that covers a huge hotspot. It is estimated to blow up every 600,000 years. We are at 630,000 years from the last blow. Hmmmmm
April 12, 2012 4:34pm
Wow, seems we're still arguing over global climate warming here. Temps will fuluctuate but will have a long term trend. More important is the measure of sea level rise as a true indicator. The results of this are that sea levels are rising twice as much as predicted.
April 12, 2012 3:05pm
I just came back from Sydney Australia. The first newspaper headline I read said that it was their coldest summer since 1965. That doesn't prove global cooling anymore than the hottest March in the US proves anything. Did you know that the hottest US temperatures occurred during the 1930's before CO2 really took off? What is woefully lacking is serious scientific substance behind the claims of high certainty in Man Made CO2 Catastrophic Warming (MMCCW). We are naive if we don't recognize that we have just as much to fear from the Climate Change Complex as we we do from the Industrial Military Complex. Regarding rising oceans last I checked they have been raising ever since the end of the last ice age. If we were really interested in finding out the truth we would spend our money on collecting reliable data as opposed to billions in climate models that have failed miserably to predict much of anything. Satellite data indicates a temperature rise hiatus during the last decade in spite of the relentless increase in CO2. This hiatus was not predicted by the models so why should we believe them? MMCCW rests primarily on the supposition that the ever decreasing influence of increased CO2 causes reactions in clouds and atmospheric water content that greatly leverage the greenhouse effects of CO2 - in essence the theory is saying more heat generates evermore heat. But these assumptions are unproven and some studies based on real data suggest these postulated net reactions to be vastly over blown. The perhaps overblown assumptions however are what drives the climate model projections and statements of certainty in MMCCW. As for scientific consensus, if actually existed which it doesn't particularly among solar scientists, geologists and meteorologists, it is also important to remember that at one time there was a scientific consensus that the sun revolved around the earth. Regarding the value of consensus in general we should also remember there was also a multi-nation intelligence service consensus that Sadam had WMD.
April 12, 2012 10:32pm
Spoke with a polar bear the other day. While swimming about in a vain effort to find an ice shelf, he says he was nearly run down a couple of times by tankers using that once legendary Northwest Passage. He was probably lying tho, because reliable sources (funded by the fossil fuel folks ) have assured us that all that ice melt stuff is just part of a hoax.
April 12, 2012 3:04pm
@Bryce Johnson
As more and more qualified scientists are studying the effects of CO2, the more we are learning that it is totally incapable of causing all that the AGW people are claiming for it.
What absolute twaddle you do talk. Who are these "qualified scientists" of whom you speak? Lord Monckton? Anthony Watts?
April 12, 2012 2:48pm
Benton, are you a satirist?
April 12, 2012 2:02pm
Yellowstone Park is the cause of global warming? Are you a satirist, Benton?
April 12, 2012 1:50pm
A hot March in the U. S. is meaningless. During the winter when the contiguous U. S. was toasting, most of the rest of the world was enduring unprecedented cold, so it is with March. As more and more qualified scientists are studying the effects of CO2, the more we are learning that it is totally incapable of causing all that the AGW people are claiming for it. The response of the AGW religions has been to invent more wild and irrational assertions. The proposed fixes for global warming are ineffective, expensive and harmful to our energy supply and economy.
April 12, 2012 12:56pm
Overpopulation, overpopulation, overpopulation!!!!
April 12, 2012 12:49pm
@BentonMiddleton: A few sources, please, for these assertions?
April 12, 2012 12:30pm
Actually, betntonmiddleton, it's those glowing Red Herrings all over the place that are responsible for climate warming! (As well as heaping piles of warm BS.)
April 12, 2012 12:28pm
Most of what you say is scientifically untrue. The increase in CO2 over the past century is human caused, not by natural causes. Yes, there is a huge variability in the parameters that affect our weather patterns, but there has not been any variability in trajectory that CO2 has taken. Scientist are the least corrupt of any of our professionals and the scientific community is strong enough that proponents of mis-information don't make much progress in the community.
April 12, 2012 1:54pm
As a scientist I can say that scientists may be the least corrupt of our professionals but that's not saying much. One has only to read the climategate emails to witness corruption withing IPCC.
April 12, 2012 1:17pm
Larry, Didn't you see the fraud at the Hadley Climate Research Unit. They were fudging the numbers to "hide the decline" in temperatures. This is all a money making scheme with Al Gore at the top...Sorry to burst your bubble old chap...
April 12, 2012 10:45pm
Just how much money do think is there to be made by the climate change proponents as compared to the TRILLIONS at stake for the fossil fuel
industry ? If you "follow the money", which camp is most likely to be the
hoaxers?
April 12, 2012 10:53am
Corruption has longed plagued environmentalism. But Man's contribution to Global Warming is minimal compared to the forces of Nature which are the REAL culprits here. The Sun in our solar system is getting warmer each and every year, and solar radiation burns into the ozone layer as does our carbon emissions. But what no one is talking about is the rising magma activity under the Earth's skin, or our common ground. Iceland has almost 30 volcanoes that were not there 25-30 years ago, and Yellowstone Park is a hotbed warmer than any time in history. This is the MAIN cause of global warming and needs to be both recognized and addressed globally by ALL nations.