Wednesday, March 5, 2008

WHY I CANT SLEEP AT NIGHT

This article was posted on boingboing.net 11 days ago. I have been having a hardtime sleeping ever since. Why aren't any of the canidates addressing global warming enough?????? THIS IS FUCKING INSANE.

The article is old, but it's all very real.

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
The Observer,
Sunday February 22 2004
Article history
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.

Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.

A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch.

One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible.

Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.

Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'

Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.

'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.

'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.

Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.

Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'

Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.

'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'

So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.

The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence.

Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'

Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.

12 comments:

DTC said...

i remember when that report came out. the more things change the more they stay the same.

Anonymous said...

I think the reason the candidates aren't addressing it enough is because they feel that global warming is secondary to the issues of the Iraq war and the state of the economy. Not only that, but there are TONS of people out there who don't believe it exists either, so the candidates probably think that they shouldn't waste their breath on a controversial subject and instead they should stick to discussing things that ALL Americans consider a priority.

I don't understand why Bush continues not to do anything about this... you can't help but feel a sense of doom when you read articles like this one.

Have you seen An Inconvenient Truth?

Gurj said...

Ok this explains why, before I flew to the UK this weekend, you said to me "Don't go to England, there's no point. It's going to be under water in 20 years anyway!"

sad
:(

Anonymous said...

all political propaganda bullshit. the earth goes through warm periods and cool periods... this is just a warm period. al gore is an ass who doesn't know the first thing about this.

introducingpants said...

Does everyone realize that we are experiencing a period of global COOLING right now? Oh right, nobody wants you to hear about that, it would ruin sales of mercury ridden flourescent light bulbs and hybrid vehicles

This whole "go green" thing is the biggest fucking corporate scam in years. No wonder Gore never got back into politics

The Original Joe Fisher said...

Excuse me, but why haven't any of the commenters addressed the real issue here? SARAH CAN'T SLEEP!!
While all of you sit idle waxing rhapsodic about global catastrophe there is a young woman out there who probably knows the Nick at Night schedule by heart!!
Sarah. Don't panic. Have you tried warm milk with honey?

Ultragrrrl said...

"Ok this explains why, before I flew to the UK this weekend, you said to me "Don't go to England, there's no point. It's going to be under water in 20 years anyway!""

I actually told you to go to the UK now, bc it will be underwater by 2020.

For those of you who say we're going through globalcooling, that does NOT mean that we are exploiting our global resources and depleting them faster than we can replace them. this is a problem.

Anonymous said...

Hey Sarah, did you see that DeCaprio film 11th hour?! It's pretty much about the resources more-so then global warming. Disturbing shit indeed.

Lawrence said...

It's a big friggin' planet. We've only scratched the surface. Can you imagine how much gold there is even further down from where we've found it thsu far.

And, yeah, temperatures are still lower than they were 1,000 years ago, before the Industrial Age. As for carbon admissions, why not focus on China and India? They weren't subjected to the much vaunted Kyoto treaty (which, by the way, was defeated 95-0 in the US Senate under Clinton. Not even those fuckwits John Kerry or Ted Kennedy voted for it. Hypocritical douchebags...).

Wanna cut down on fossil fuels? Fine. Let's go nuclear. It's clean and efficient and is a bazillion times safer than it was 20 years ago. France is 80% nuclear.

Global warming is another excuse for the government and busy-bodies to scare us into all sorts of nonsense so they have a reason to exist and get up in your grill. It also gives documentary film-makers something to scare up the population. People love being scared. It's why they go to horror movies.

Blaming humans for global warming is a scam. Mount Pinatubo had more to do with increasing carbon in the atmosphere than you using a spray-on deodorant.

Anonymous said...

if england sinks, i hope all of the bands to come out of there in the last 10 years go down with the ship.

and, im afraid to say it, but i'm with lawrence on this one. people want you SCARED so you will BUY.

Anonymous said...

Please, I'm still getting over all the drugs they just found in the New York City drinking water. All kinds of anti-depressants and estrogen! And still, my boobies do not grow! But I'm not so upset about it anymore... hee.

Anonymous said...

Dang... I always felt Ultragrrrl would be too smart to buy into the cleverly marketed "global warming will kill us" industry. I call it an industry because certain people are getting really rich pushing this scam. They're just capitalists who are given a pass because they say they're trying to save the planet. Carbon credits? How rich are those people getting for doing nothing?