The following NYT editorial regarding Global Warming hits the problem right
on the head, and confirms my own thoughts regarding this issue.

As I've been saying for a number of years now, the primary reason/problem
why nothing serious is being done to slow down and reverse Global Warming --
at least not in the USA -- is Big Business interests -- such as the oil
industry and the automobile industry -- and all of their darn lobbyists in
Washington, D.C. who pull the strings of so many politicans, all the way up
to the president of the USA. After all, it takes Big Money to become
president; and to get that money, you have to do what they say, and
implement the policies that they want. This includes adopting their
attitudes towards Global Warming.

George W. Bush was certainly in the lobbyists' bag; and, of course, he was a
Big Business man himself. As I've mentioned before, at the beginning of his
term in office, Bush was in total denial that Global Warming is real, and it
really made him look like an uneducated idiot, in my view.

While I believe that there are scientific and physical reasons why Global
Warming is occurring, as I've mentioned before, I also believe that Global
Warming may be a plague sent by God upon the inhabitants of the Earth, due
to their rebellion against Him; and as the rebellion grows in coming years,
so will the degree of the plague. I also believe that some of the Endtime
plagues that are mentioned in the Bible, such as in the Book of Revelation,
may be brought about by man's own foolish hand. In other words, Global
Warming could very well be a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, as
the writer of the editorial states, we know that it is coming; we know why
it is coming; and yet, we do nothing to stop it or to reverse it. As a
result, we bring about our own destruction.


Cassandras of Climate

By PAUL KRUGMAN - NYT

September 27, 2009


Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you've
been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we're
hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything
to avert it.

And here's the thing: I'm not engaging in hyperbole. These days, dire
warnings aren't the delusional raving of cranks. They're what come out of
the most widely respected climate models, devised by the leading
researchers. The prognosis for the planet has gotten much, much worse in
just the last few years.

What's driving this new pessimism? Partly it's the fact that some predicted
changes, like a decline in Arctic Sea ice, are happening much faster than
expected. Partly it's growing evidence that feedback loops amplifying the
effects of man-made greenhouse gas emissions are stronger than previously
realized. For example, it has long been understood that global warming will
cause the tundra to thaw, releasing carbon dioxide, which will cause even
more warming, but new research shows far more carbon dioxide locked in the
permafrost than previously thought, which means a much bigger feedback
effect.

The result of all this is that climate scientists have, en masse, become
Cassandras -- gifted with the ability to prophesy future disasters, but
cursed with the inability to get anyone to believe them.

And we're not just talking about disasters in the distant future, either.
The really big rise in global temperature probably won't take place until
the second half of this century, but there will be plenty of damage long
before then.

For example, one 2007 paper in the journal Science is titled "Model
Projections of an Imminent Transition to a More Arid Climate in Southwestern
North America" -- yes, "imminent" -- and reports "a
broad consensus among
climate models" that a permanent drought, bringing Dust Bowl-type
conditions, "will become the new climatology of the American Southwest
within a time frame of years to decades."

So if you live in, say, Los Angeles, and liked those pictures of red skies
and choking dust in Sydney, Australia, last week, no need to travel. They'll
be coming your way in the not-too-distant future.

Now, at this point I have to make the obligatory disclaimer that no
individual weather event can be attributed to global warming. The point,
however, is that climate change will make events like that Australian dust
storm much more common.

In a rational world, then, the looming climate disaster would be our
dominant political and policy concern. But it manifestly isn't. Why not?

Part of the answer is that it's hard to keep peoples' attention focused.
Weather fluctuates -- New Yorkers may recall the heat wave that pushed the
thermometer above 90 in April -- and even at a global level, this is enough
to cause substantial year-to-year wobbles in average temperature. As a
result, any year with record heat is normally followed by a number of cooler
years: According to Britain's Met Office, 1998 was the hottest year so far,
although NASA -- which arguably has better data -- says it was 2005. And it's
all too easy to reach the false conclusion that the danger is past.

But the larger reason we're ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was
right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change
with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be
devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic
deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic
opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in
place right now; the industries of the future don't.

Nor is it just a matter of vested interests. It's also a matter of vested
ideas. For three decades the dominant political ideology in America has
extolled private enterprise and denigrated government, but climate change is
a problem that can only be addressed through government action. And rather
than concede the limits of their philosophy, many on the right have chosen
to deny that the problem exists.

So here we are, with the greatest challenge facing mankind on the back
burner, at best, as a policy issue. I'm not, by the way, saying that the
Obama administration was wrong to push health care first. It was necessary
to show voters a tangible achievement before next November. But climate
change legislation had better be next.

And as I pointed out in my last column, we can afford to do this. Even as
climate modelers have been reaching consensus on the view that the threat is
worse than we realized, economic modelers have been reaching consensus on
the view that the costs of emission control are lower than many feared.

So the time for action is now. O.K., strictly speaking it's long past. But
better late than never.



Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS  Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23
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