Special to the Mirror by Tony Picardi
This week we witnessed yet another episode of destructive weather-related events. The frequency and destructiveness of wildfires, storms and severe heat waves has been increasing year-by-year. The consequent property destruction and loss of life among US citizens in the continental US and in Puerto Rico continues to set records.
Fires and storms will always be with us. The long-term background level of these events is well-understood by climate scientists. The science of global warming tells us that the frequency and severity of weather-related events has been increasing and will continue to increase above this background level until greenhouse gas emissions are stopped. These recurring weather disasters are more severe than they would have been if greenhouse gas emissions had been stopped any time in the last 20 years after human-caused global warming became a scientific consensus.
The difference between the background level of weather events and the level of death and destruction that we are now experiencing is a “climate catastrophe tax”. This tax is measured in dollars, environmental destruction and human suffering and death. This catastrophe tax has been visited upon us by the republican global warming deniers who refuse to do anything about stopping greenhouse gas emissions. Complicit with these republicans are the citizens who voted for them with full knowledge that these representatives would refuse to deal with this recurring disaster.
What should we do when our representatives refuse to stop a worsening catastrophe? It would be nice if those representatives, along with their willing accomplice voters, paid the climate catastrophe tax themselves. Sadly, we cannot hold voters accountable for willful ignorance. But we CAN at least hold our representatives accountable. If we cannot serve them with a catastrophe tax directly, then at least we can remove them from office so they cannot continue to cause death and destruction through their failure to do anything about global warming.
Two-thirds of Americans want the US to remain in the Paris Climate Accord and to address global warming. The US military calls global warming the greatest long-term threat to our national security. It is fair and democratic that representatives that are causing us harm should be removed from office. It is essential that we remove all republicans from office in the next elections so that the United States can seriously address global warming as an economic, human and national security issue.
The Eastern Shore was lucky to escape a head-on collision with a gigantic storm this week – a storm that was made stronger by the Atlantic Ocean which is at record high temperatures. The next time we may not be so lucky. Your property and your lives depend on you removing Republicans from office in the next elections. I urge you to act responsibly.
Tony Picardi is retired in Belle Haven where he grows soybeans and manages a wildlife refuge. He gives lectures and leads tours on the natural history of the Eastern Shore and global warming. He holds a Doctor of Science Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of technology.
‘Tony Picardi is retired in Belle Haven where he grows soybeans and manages a wildlife refuge. He gives lectures and leads tours on the natural history of the Eastern Shore and global warming. He holds a Doctor of Science Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of technology. ‘
I bet he voted for Hillary and Lil’ Barry twice. LOL!
My guess is that Dr. Picardi lives in very large home, owns a suv’s, boats, and flies first class all over the country. Please prove me wrong….
Huge carbon footprint.
Dr. Picardi, thank you for your succinct and thoughtful addition to this blog. Please disregard the two non-relative responses, for they know not what they speak of. I like to think of it as a drivel from the thick. But, that is not why I am here.
Many Americans do not even realize that the climate change debate has been ongoing for over sixty years now. There was/is an article in Life magazine (August 27, 1956 edition) titled “Our New Weather”. Written by Herbert Bean, this essay speaks of weather conditions already being monitored and measured as changing due to human condition. But, it may not be as you think.
Several of the changing conditions were caused to be due to growing cities and placement of measuring instrumentation in conjunction with those cities. Other factors considered in 1956 were sunspot activity and active volcanic effects. But, one telling paragraph states, “Still another hypothesis is based on the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. Since the mid-nineteenth century, man’s increased population and enormously expanded industrialization has pumped CO2 into the atmosphere in the form of combusted carbon from oil, coal and wood. At present the atmosphere contains 2.35 trillion tons of it, and we are adding about 10 billion tons a year. It has been estimated that in another fifty years forty-seven billion tons will be added annually.” It goes on to state that this cause, along with the addition of water vapor, forms a kind of veil over the earth. Heat radiation from the sun, which comes in short waves, is able to pierce the veil, but as the earth reflects heat, in the form of long
waves, they become trapped and retained in the earth’s atmosphere. It ends with this statement
and I quote: “Once again the verdict of most meteorologists is that CO2 certainly has a hand in weather formation, but not a lone hand. During the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year, when most nations will make meteorological and oceanographic observations, the CO2 situation will be carefully studied, since further increases in terrestrial temperatures could have profound effects on the polar icecaps and on sea levels.” Unquote.
So, what happened to those studies? Where is the data now? Why weren’t we educated on the effects of emissions and increased CO2? These are statements made over sixty years ago! And we are still having this same discussion! We are a species with amnesia. We swallow the propaganda and discard the truth! We are a nation of ill-informed, over-fed, thick, shallow, selfish idiots.
We are led by the nose by Big Corporate and told what to think, what to eat, what to believe. We get what we deserve. And folks like these two already spouting off on here are at the forefront of this America we have today. Fat, dumb and compliant. God Bless our hearts.
Look to the south of you and marvel at all that black water, oily from toxins, flowing in and out of churches, houses, stores and automobiles. That is what happens when you don’t listen to science. But, keep blaming these troubles on politicians. Keep ducking blame and culpability.
Turn away from what could have been, instead look forward to your future. We have no one to blame but ourselves. And Patton and Slide Easy…I believe it was Dwight D. Eisenhower who was in office when this article was first published. Start, by blaming him, if you still need a scapegoat.
Mr. Cornweller, Why do you feel the need to start your rebuttal to my comment with a condescending remark? Please…prove my assertion wrong. If I was a highly educated climate change expert, I would do everything in my power to lessen my personal carbon foot print. Lead by example…right?
He is a Liberal. They are the greatest threat to our nation today.
You know what Patton? You are right. I was condescending to you. And I pre-judged you. And like the man that I am, I am owning up to that. And as for my remark being mis-placed, I apologize. But, I would like to clarify a couple of things. Does this Dr. Picardi not manage a wildlife refuge (1.) And also, does he not give lectures and leads tours on the Natural History of the Eastern Shore? (2.) At least according to Slide Easy’s comment.
My question is this…why would you assume (guess) that he lives in a very large home, owns an SUV, along with boats (plural) and flies first class all over the country? Are you equating him with others (Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio – for two) and trying to point out the hypocrisy of educated and moneyed people who want to lecture us low feeding peons. However, this is not how this works. Sorry.
I was trying to make the point that for my entire life time (I am in my sixties) we (the collective we – not you and I – not judging) we have not been listening or we’ve been lied to, or the truth has been buried in that big pile of horse dung over next to all those oil refineries. But, some folks just want to make comments for comments sake. This is not a political problem, anyway you look at it. The politicians have made it such, because their handlers saw benefits in torqueing up the common man, instead of being scrutinized on the fact that fossil fuels are literally raising the temperature of the planet. So, my condescending remark is directed at the foolishness that comes from folks that either deny the fact that the climate is changing world wide or harangue folks that point out this fact. I have neither the patience or the temperament to tolerate this type of attitude. If you want to change my mind, show me some facts or science that proves your point. Not the fact someone voted one way or another in just another chintzy political race.
Patton, this is a real issue, like AIDs or hunger or war. We are responsible for this planet for our sakes, our children’s sake and our children’s progenies’ sake. If a carbon foot print is a joke, then what is the point? Pray tell, what is the point? And again, I apologize for being condescending, it was not my intent.
Many Americans no longer view Liberals, like you, as our fellow Americans.
Chas, I don’t think that anyone is arguing that climates don’t change. The nuns in elementary school taught me of the internecine global warming and cooling periods.
Nor are we denying that befouling our land is bad.
What we are doing is questioning Man’s impact on the changes, and the efficacy of restricting ONLY OUR economy to fix the problem.
Pray tell how are we, The USA to fix India, China and Africa’s impact on the environment by putting ourselves into penury?
AND we will also NOT stick our heads into the sand regarding the fact that all these big ol’ environmental conferences seem to fill up each and every private jet facility, and always are half a world away, always filled with the finest foods and drinks, and more hypocrisy than thought possible.
As to oil refineries, the USA has 136, and the rest of the world has around 400. So should we close OURS only to let those in 2nd and 3rd world countries remain? You realize WE are far cleaner than they will EVER be, right?
Honestly? Stop screaming the sky is falling and you all would have a lot better reception on my side of the aisle. But I also gotta tell you, putting up liars like Blasey Ford do little for your sides credibility.
Liberals showed the world their true colors today, political correctness cannot hide it. The question is…What are we going to do about it? For right now, the answer is to vote. No, Republican is not perfect, but a vote for a Democrat is just about as Anti-American as one can be. From the far left wing to the quiet couple that have voted for the party line for the last 30 years….unfortunately, they are one in the same. They vote for the same end. They must be painted with the same broad brush.
Sad….
Mike, dude, what it is?
Say, Mike, if anyone in here can be counted on to have a working memory that can remember more than about a millisecond, or one TWEET on mindless TWITTER ago, it would be you.
So you must remember when American president George W. Bush gave his “Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination” at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia on August 3, 2000, when he talked about “(T)ogether, we will renew America’s purpose,” a line Hussein Obama later hijacked and tried to make his own, since he had nothing original to say, outside of all the dope-smoking and coke-snorting he did as a preppie boy at the exclusive Punahou school in Hawaii, where he perfected the art of getting over that was to land him in the white house after George W. Bush was forced to leave due to term limits.
Do you remember him saying these following words in that address:
My father was the last president of a great generation, a generation of Americans who stormed beaches, liberated concentration camps and delivered us from evil.
Some never came home.
Those who did put their medals in drawers, went to work and built on a heroic scale highways and universities, suburbs and factories, great cities and grand alliances, the strong foundations of an American century.
Now the question comes to the sons and daughters of this achievement, what is asked of us?
end quotes
What a question that was, Mike, especially for me, a returned Viet Nam combat veteran (as an aside, our dear friend and fellow CCM commentator tokenny looks me to try to get that in once in every thread, which is often a challenge I can’t meet, but here it comes in naturally), wondering about that same question, myself, totally independent of George W. Bush at that time.
Do you remember him saying:
We will confront the hard issues, threats to our national security, threats to our health and retirement security, before the challenges of our time become crises for our children.
And we will extend the promise of prosperity to every forgotten corner of this country: to every man and woman, a chance to succeed; to every child, a chance to learn; and to every family, a chance to live with dignity and hope.
end quotes
I certainly do, as I had actually been engaged in confronting the hard issues myself as an associate public health engineer in corrupt New York state when Young Andy Cuomo’s dad, Mario, was the governor, the threats to our health here in corrupt New York state, which are many, actually.
Do you recall him saying this following about “Bubba” Clinton, Hillary’s errant husband:
Our current president embodied the potential of a generation—so many talents, so much charm, such great skill.
But in the end, to what end?
So much promise to no great purpose.
end quotes
That also applies to Hussein Obama as well, but that is another subject, isn’t it.
And do you recall these thrilling words from that address, to wit:
We will write not footnotes but chapters in the American story.
We will add the work of our hands to the inheritance of our fathers and mothers and leave this nation greater than we found it.
end quotes
What inspiration, Mike, and today, in corrupt New York state, we have the sniveling loser Young Andy Cuomo saying America was never great.
Can you imagine it?
And getting to the point here, Mike, do you remember him saying this:
Instead, we must usher in an era of responsibility.
end quotes
You must have, because that is what comes across in so many of your posts – that need for an era of responsibility, especially after eight long years of Hussein Obama and the culture of anything goes and if it feels good, then do it, which culture gave us Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and her terrible tale of misery and woe at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh back in 1982, when she was a part of the boozy culture in her high class section of Maryland outside of Washington, D.C.
But my goodness, enough of her!
Here is what is relevant to this thread, to wit:
In a responsibility era, each of us has important tasks, work that only we can do.
Corporations are responsible to treat their workers fairly and to leave the air and waters clean.
end quotes
What ever happened to that responsibility of corporations to leave the air and waters clean, do you think?
“We swallow the propaganda and discard the truth! We are a nation of ill-informed, over-fed, thick, shallow, selfish idiots. ”
Indeed, Chas. Indeed.
Tell me, Chas. are the Russians in the room with you now?