Monday, June 9, 2008

Polar Express

There is a new sense of scientific urgency around the accelerating pace of climate warming in the earth's polar regions. A NASA satellite camera on the Aqua caught a Manhattan-size floating piece of ice shelf in the act of disintegrating on Feb 28, 2008.

By March 8, the Wilkins ice shelf, comprising some 5,000 miles of floating ice off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula had lost 160 square miles of ice to the Pacific Ocean.

The July 2008 edition of Scientific American reports that this ice breakup is the latest of seven major Antarctic ice-shelf collapses in the past 30 years, after some 400 years of relative stability.

Once again, before casting our votes, we need to know where Barack Obama and John McCaine stand on the issue of global warming, and we need to know who they intend to use as their advisors on the vitally important issue.

Our health and the health of our offspring could depend on the quality of science-based decisions made in the next few years.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree. Rarely do we hear about the candidates stand when it comes to environmental issues and that needs to change. If we as voters start to demand such, then they will be forced to address these issues.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous,

I certainly hope you are right. Learning to consume less in order to leave a smaller footprint on this planet is the responsibility of each one of us, and we really need the commitment to start at the top. I, for one, will not vote for any candidate that does not make that commitment clear.

Anonymous said...

Its not just up to the president to stop global warming. We need to help to. If we don't take a stand and start taking care of our enviroment our children will be raised in a very horrible place.

Anonymous said...

Hi Susanne,

I agree it is not up to our president to prevent global warming, but the job of carefully selecting the most qualfied science advisors is the president's responsibility, therefore we need to know who these advisors will be before we cast our precious votes in November.

Anonymous said...

Stop pussyfooting around the issue.

Dennis Kucinich, the representative from Ohio, is not the only one who thinks impeachment is mandatory to let the world know that 80% of U.S. citizens sincerely regret the election of George Bush, since he has done NOTHING to preserve the earth, or protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Anonymous said...

While I'm hardly a George Bush fan, I won't blame him for everything wrong with today society, including global warming.

The science that supports major environmental changes has been around for the past 35 years. The entitled U.S. "More is Better" attitude of individual citizens is responsible for the big fat mess our country is in.

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