The Global Warming Time Bomb

First, we were misled. Seems like NASA was too.

[quote] Watchdog: NASA misled on global warming studies: WASHINGTON (AP) -- NASA's press office "marginalized or mischaracterized" studies on global warming between 2004 and 2006, the agency's own internal watchdog concluded.

In a report released Monday, NASA's inspector general office called it "inappropriate political interference" by political appointees in the press office. It said the agency's top management wasn't part of the censorship, nor were career officials.[/quote]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/nasa.global.warming.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Now comes the bad results of our ignoring the problem.

[quote]In Spain, Water Is a New Battleground:FORTUNA, Spain — Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses — dozens of them, all recently built — give way to the beach. At last, this hardscrabble corner of southeast Spain is thriving.
There is only one problem with the picture of bounty: this province, Murcia, is running out of water. Swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert, a process spurred on by global warming and poorly planned development.[/quote]
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/world/europe/03dry.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Of course, poor planning due to not believing global warming was happening has long been a problem.

But things are getting worse. Apparently the melting itself might release more greenhouse gases.

[quote]UCR research team sees climate threat under Arctic ice:Global warming could release long-dormant stores of methane gas trapped beneath the Arctic permafrost, causing an abrupt and catastrophic climate change like one that occurred 635 million years ago, UC Riverside researchers have determined.

Back then, the sheets of ice that covered Earth started to collapse, releasing methane gas that warmed the planet and caused the ice to retreat over a period of 100 to 1,000 years, said Martin Kennedy, a geology professor in UCR's Department of Earth Sciences. Kennedy led the research team.[/quote]

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_R_global29.3ddb5dd.html

But still, our understanding as a nation is impeded by the likes of ignorant people like our president who care more about money than the planet. Did he care about the "enormous cost" of the Iraq war? DIdn't think so.

[quote]Bush Warns Against Senate Climate Change Bill:WASHINGTON — President Bush weighed in Monday against a Senate bill that would require dramatic cuts in climate-changing greenhouse pollution, cautioning senators "to be very careful about running up enormous costs for future generations of Americans."

The Senate climate bill expected to be debated much of this week would cut emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases by about 70 percent over the next four decades. The bill targets power plants, refineries, factories and transportation.[/quote]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,361704,00.html

Ladies and Gentlemen, the time for debate is over. The results of global warming as predicted fifty years ago are starting to happen, earlier than predicted. They were right, there is no way to predict how much our increased usage of fossil fuels and increased pollution will spead this up. It is already way ahead of schedule. It sounds as if it may be to late, especially if they are right yet again, and there is a large supply of methane hidden under the arctic ice.

Argue all you want, the evidence has always been there, the results and predictions are starting to happen, the debate is over, you just don't know it. Any longer of the ridiculous squabbling from the right, and we can hand the next generation a big pile of crap that will take THOUSANDS of years to fix.