.

Global warming is like a train, slowly picking up speed as it leaves the station. Some scientists are reporting, though, that the acceleration of the effects of global warming is picking up speed faster than at first predicted.

Creatures, on both land and in the oceans, are feeling distress over global warming, and thus are adjusting their migratory patterns accordingly. This will definitely have an impact on land-based human populations.

But the impact of global warming on the oceans is still the key to understanding what will happen to the human race.

Apparently, this U.N. study discusses rising earth temperatures, but doesn’t discuss what scientists discovered in Antarctica in the 1990s while drilling for ice core samples dating back to the beginning of the last Great Ice Age 12,000 years ago.

The international team of scientists reported that the Antarctic ice core samples indicated that just prior to the Great Ice Age the earth’s temperature increased sharply (like global warming), but within 30 years, the earth (especially the furthest north and south latitudes) cooled just as sharply and the Great Ice Age began.

One theory at the time was that the sharp temperature increase (like global warming) melted enough of the polar ice caps and glaciers to flood the oceans with fresh water, which interferred somehow with the oceans’ currents, disrupting the oceans’ transfer of heat from the tropics to the furthest northernsouthern latitudes, triggering the Great Ice Age that blanketed (and froze) much of the northern/southern hemisphere for over a thousand years.

I will be curious to see if this “global warming leading to global cooling” scenario is covered in the U.N. report. This is why I believe certain scientists are keeping a very sharp eye on the oceans’ currents around the world, with a team of British scientists reporting last year that while the speed of the northern flow of the Gulf Stream (which passes by Britain) has remained constant, the speed of the southern flow of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic (off the U.S. coast) has slowed by 30 percent. They said they needed to conduct more studies to verify their data and to try to determine what may be causing this disparity between northbound and southbound Gulf Stream flow rates.

The impact, therefore, of global warming on the oceans, and their currents, are the key. This global warming “heat wave” may just be followed by a global “cold snap” which means much of the human race (and other of earth’s creatures) will suffer a double whammy, much like what must have happened 12,000 years ago.

We may have already passed the threshold. But to do nothing amounts to a crime against humanity, especially against any of our offspring (and their offspring) that survive this double whammy we’ve ignorantly bequeathed to them.

Re Richardson, I do not endorse him but he has the kind of resume we should be looking for in Democratic candidates. He has served in the Congress, had foreign policy experience, been part of an Administration, and had executive experience as a governor. Compare this to “Sometimes I can give a mean speech” Obama or even “One term in the Senate” Edwards or “I’m just starting my second term in the Senate” Hillary. My point here is that the Democratic Party should be finding ways to build up those who are and will be its spokespeople. Maybe then Hillary wouldn’t need to defend an indefensible war for 4 years or Obama would have a record he could point to.

I agree, and one of the aspects of being in the positions he’s been in is that you’re going to do some things that aren’t popular with the folks who should support you.

I have no insights into what Richardson did at DOE or elsewhere, and certainly can’t say whether what he did was good or bad, but part of being a cabinet secretary is that you have to support the Administration you’re a part of. Advocacy is done behind the scenes, if it’s in opposition to the Administration’s priorities.

I don’t know what to think about Richardson, but his experience is impressive relative to the rest of the field.

Wordpress is doing the temporal paradox thing – pulled my 3:42 comment back to #57 (and ate # 57).

I restarted Firefox: hope this gets back in real time.

Thanks for your work!

PS – If there’s any way to coax the temporal hairball into coughing up the original comment 57, that’d be cool….

How long does “Making a Profit” excuse the fraud?

WHY is “Making a Profit” an accepted excuse at all?

I saw it in The Guardian online yesterday — it made me cry and chilled me to the bone.

OT and just arriving to the post. I just caught a snippet of an interview with Senator Warner on CNN with Lou Dobbs. Warner was pleading for European support with US stand against Iran. Specifically asking for European ships to join ours in the Persian Gulf.
No mincing no parsing, just a direct appeal.

Grrr… Time for another call to my senator’s office on Monday. To think I used to have some respect for the guy.