Let's start with the one giving me the biggest problem right now and that is climate change. Here are facts: the world is not getting colder but warmer. People confuse the weather outside their home, to global climate. "Ohhhhh, we had a cold winter, so global warming is bunk," is all I hear. "World temperatures are dropping." That's called winter. Also, depending on where you are, temperatures may have indeed dropped as global warming is not uniform. It doesn't change the fact that overall, temperatures are rising. And for love of God, stop referencing an idiotic article written 20 years ago in the UK paper, the Independent, about snows being a thing of the past. They were wrong. It happens all the time. Get over it. A quick word about this: if the article or study was not from the last few years, I don't care. It's garbage. Move on.
The new study released this week by the National Climate Assessment concluded Tuesday that Climate Change is real and could spell the end of humanity if left unchecked. The report is 840 pages long, filled with figures, charts and graphics, includes 3096 footnotes of other peer reviewed research. You know, science. 250 scientists, experts in their field as well as government officials, were those responsible for the data. It has been reviewed by other scientists, including twice by the National Academy of Science, who called it "reasonable," and has said so publically.
In it, it says if we don't get ahead of carbon dioxide problems, we face a world ten degrees hotter than now over the next hundred years. That may not sound like much, but think what would happen if you body temp spiked by that same amount. You'd be VERY sick and most likely, near death. That's what the Earth faces if we don't do something about it. I don't know how much conjecture we can have considering we can see climate change in real time now.
Has anyone else noticed how short our spring and falls seasons are becoming? It's not an illusion but fact. In the mid-west right now, their spring lasted about three weeks. They went from snow in mid-April to temperatures in the nineties and above. This is happening more and more. Maple syrup production has been devastated by this as their yields show a year by year drop that shows no signs of abating. The Northeast has seen a two degree temperature shift over the last hundred years which is way too fast for that to happen naturally. We know this from ice core samples, trees and other ways of measuring the past. This level of warming is not something seen in millions of years, and the previous ones had specific natural causes. This one doesn't.
Of course the right has spit all over this because it certainly seems that anyone supporting the Republican party is borderline mentally challenged at this point. These idiots are selling us down the river. Not the democrats are much better, because they aren't, but at least they show a modicum of intelligence by not wanting to destroy the planet by Tuesday.
Why else would the Republicans keep voting against unemployment insurance, social security reforms, Medicare and raising the minimum wage. If we don't give the middle class a raise and soon, society will come to a screeching halt. People used a record number of credit cards last month, as the savings rate plummeted to zero. We are tapped out and there is no end in sight. The GOP in all their glory have proposed to make it harder for people to eat, vote or live in general. That is a recipe for disaster. I stump everyone who argues against raising this wage with this: name me any place in this country where raising the minimum wage destroyed the economy. Good luck because I have found nowhere where that is true. San Francisco actually saw record growth after they did raise their rate because, and this is a radical concept, people with money have a tendency to spend it. This creates demand, which creates jobs, which creates wealth. You do not create wealth by giving it all to a select few while everyone else fights for scraps. That has never worked ever. Again, tell me any civilization where that level of wealth disparity worked for more than a few years before revolution strikes.
Lastly, we have Boko Harum, which sounds a lot like a band from the 70's, who kidnapped a bunch of girls and are going to sell them into slavery. I must have missed the part of the Koran where that was mentioned as okay. When are we going to treat radical Islam as a fundamental problem like we did with Communism or the Nazi's? Between this, and the idiot Sultan of Brunei establishing an Islamic State, complete with homophobia and dismemberments, causing protests outside the Bel Air hotel which the Sultan owns, when is enough enough? When does religion cross that fine line into extremism?
Here's a great idea how to start combating the scourge of radical Islam with this easy, no war fix: STOP BUYING OIL. Let us start spending a trillion dollars on new energy sources rather than for some freaking tanks no one wants or needs in the world's most expensive job program. End oil and end Islamic terror. End the war of drugs after that and their source of income drops off the map. They won't have the money to eat let alone blow anyone up. The Middle East can go back to what it once was: a desert filled people who would rather work hard than fight their neighbor. If the radicals want to kill one another, have at it, but they'll be using kitchen knives as they won't have enough cash for guns, let alone bullets.
We have the technology right now to change America's energy consumption and we can start today, not next week, next year, next decade, as it always seems to be out of reach. The reason that is is that oil companies don't want that to happen as they go out of business if they do. Instead, we pass on invention and have stagnated because of this. We can eliminate oil right now with new research funding ways to make oil artificially, ways to make fuel out of algae, solar panel tech that could give near free energy to most of this country, and other new methods that are being held back by greedy multi-nationals.
We are a tipping point and if we don't do something soon, there will not be a planet left. Vote in 2014 for any candidate that is willing to go against their party, democrat or republican, for the betterment of us all. Ones that fight for women's rights, gay people, the environment, the poor and middle class. Or you can just shoot yourself, because the end result will be the same.
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