AGW-related climate change forces Eskimos to abandon villages; worldwide threat discussed
ernesto-s...@usa.net
firm against some of the most extreme weather conditions on Earth for
thousands of years. But now, flooding blamed on climate change is
forcing at least one Eskimo village to move to safer ground.
Floodwaters rip through the village of Newtok, Alaska, destroying its
infrastructure.
The community of the tiny coastal village of Newtok voted to relocate
its 340 residents to new homes 9 miles away, up the Ninglick River.
The village, home to indigenous Yup'ik Eskimos, is the first of
possibly scores of threatened Alaskan communities that could be
abandoned.
Warming temperatures are melting coastal ice shelves and frozen sub-
soils, which act as natural barriers to protect the village against
summer deluges from ocean storm surges.
"We are seeing the erosion, flooding and sinking of our village right
now," said Stanley Tom, a Yup'ik Eskimo and tribal administrator for
the Newtok Traditional Council.
The crisis is unique because its devastating effects creep up on
communities, eating away at their infrastructure, unlike with sudden
natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes or hurricanes.
Newtok is just one example of what the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns is part of a growing
climate change crisis that will displace 150 million people by 2050.
The group says indigenous peoples in Asia, Central America and Africa
are threatened by shifting environmental conditions blamed on climate
change.
"We will not be able to survive"
Tom's ancestors have been living in the region for centuries, he
said.
"Our land is our resource, our source of food; it's our country. We
live off of it. If we go to another village or city, we will not be
able to survive," Tom said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has estimated that moving Newtok
could cost $130 million. Twenty-six other Alaskan villages are in
immediate danger, with an additional 60 considered under threat in the
next decade, according to the corps.
The village crisis is taking place as more than 400 indigenous people
from 80 nations gather 500 miles (800 kilometers) away in Anchorage,
Alaska, at the first Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate
Change.
The conference aimed to address global issues effecting indigenous
communities like the Yup'ik Eskimos. The five-day summit also hoped to
raise global awareness about the crisis facing these indigenous
communities and to help them speak with a more unified voice, said
Patricia Cochran, chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, which
hosted the event.
U.N. scientists have long blamed increases in average global
temperatures on the emission of excess greenhouse gases such as carbon
dioxide by industry and the burning of petroleum-based fuel.
Summit delegates will work on a declaration outlining the climate
change-related issues facing indigenous people. The declaration will
be agreed upon Friday and presented at the Conference of Parties
United Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark,
in December.
"On the international level, the meeting in Copenhagen at the end of
the year is incredibly important, it will lay down the road map on how
we tackle climate change and who gets to be involved," said Sam
Johnston of Tokyo, Japan-based United Nations University, a co-sponsor
of the summit.
"Climate change poses threats and dangers to the survival of
indigenous communities worldwide, even though they contribute least to
greenhouse emissions," United Nations General Assembly President
Miguel D'Escoto said at the summit.
Worldwide threat described:
Climate change, conference delegates say, is threatening the
traditional lifestyles of indigenous peoples around the world.
Specific environmental threats include droughts, sea level rise,
warmer temperatures; lack of rainfall, flooding and loss of
biodiversity, climatologists say. The specific combination of threats
varies by region.
For example, in the island nation of Papua New Guinea, an increase in
population growth coupled with rising sea levels is decreasing the
amount of crop land making farming very difficult for the indigenous
people of the region, according to the U.N.
In the African nation of Kenya, the Samburu tribe is on the verge of a
food and economic crisis, the U.N. said, as lengthy droughts kill
livestock that provides income and sustenance for the community.
In Mexico, highland Mayan farmers are fighting to survive amid
decreasing rainfall, unseasonal frost and unprecedented changes in
daytime temperatures, the U.N. reported. These conditions are forcing
the farmers to plant alternative crops and to search for other sources
of irrigation.
"We are the ones that are the most effected" by climate change, said
Saul Vicente-Vasquez, a Mexican economist and longtime human rights
activist for indigenous peoples.
"Climigration" refers to the forced and permanent migration of
communities because of severe climate change effects on essential
infrastructure. This differs from migration caused by catastrophic
environmental events such as hurricanes and earthquakes. The concept
of "climigration" implies that there is no possibility of these
communities returning home, said Alaskan human rights lawyer Robin
Bronen, who coined the term.
"There needs to be a new institutional framework that is created,
that's based in human rights doctrines ... that facilitates
relocations," Bronen said.
Back in Newtok, village leaders continue to work with federal and
state representatives while they plan to relocate.
"We have a new village, but we don't have all the funding that the
village needs to move right now," said Sally Russell Cox planner with
the Alaska division of community and regional affairs.
If the crisis worsens and forces an emergency evacuation, Cox said
officials want to provide "a safe place to go if they need to get out
of the village."
As for Tom, he said he's looking forward to getting it over with. "We
hope to move to the new village site and be able to get on with
regular life."
Ernie
John Black
@g19g2000yql.googlegroups.com>, ernesto-s...@usa.net says...
> CNN - April 24, 2009 -- The indigenous people of Alaska have stood
> firm against some of the most extreme weather conditions on Earth for
> thousands of years. But now, flooding blamed on climate change is
> forcing at least one Eskimo village to move to safer ground.
Ernesto, its warmer now than it was a hundred years ago and especially 100
to 200 years ago in the Dalton minimum. That is not in dispute. The A in
the AGW is very much in dispute. I'm sure the Eskimos are well aware of the
Dalton minimum and the Medieval Warm Period hundreds of years ago when the
planet was warmer than it is now. I'm sure they are aware of the countless
global warmings and coolings that the planet has experienced in its
history...
John Black
tdodge
think.
That glacier has retreated to the Arctic Circle. This has been going on
for some time.
What a hoax!
____________________________________________________________________
RecGroups : the community-oriented newsreader : www.recgroups.com
ernesto-s...@usa.net
AGW advocate (including myself) amounts to two conclusions:
a) climate fluctuations on a global scale have indeed occurred
throughout the life of our planet
b) at the same time, human-generated pollution of our air, soil,
waters, and upper atmosphere are having a disastrous effect on the
planet including, and not limited to, radical unnatural worldwide
effects on climate.
The real hoax would be any AGW skeptics fostering the position that
only “a” is true and therefore somehow “b” cannot also be true, and so
in their view, nothing need be done about a condition that is not
real.
Casuistry and sophistry are no substitute for common sense and
accountability to ourselves and to our posterity.
Ernie
bk4...@hotmail.com
AGW skeptics have trouble with the word "radical" in your claim b. It
is just plain not provable, one way or the other.
The real shame is that people aren't doing more about the real
problem: we've built an entire civilization that is dependent on
fossil fuels, which by their very definition, will someday run out.
Honestly, it reads like a Star Trek episode. Now will start the
debate about how much longer they will last, which is also completely
unanswerable and irrelevant. They WILL run out. And, at the very
least, they are just plain dirty. For Christs sake, do we really need
to make them out to be the destroyers of the planet in order to
develop something better? The planet does not need to be saved - WE
DO.
If as much energy was spent on new technology as is being spent
bloviating about AGW and crippling existing industry we would all be
driving around in flying cars by now. An individual can be amazingly
intelligent but humans in groups are just plain dumb.
Bob Keller
Dan White
news:0ccffa43-c7fa-4931...@k19g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
If as much energy was spent on new technology as is being spent
bloviating about AGW and crippling existing industry we would all be
driving around in flying cars by now. An individual can be amazingly
intelligent but humans in groups are just plain dumb.
Exactly. I think if and when fossil fuels run out, and only then, will the
free market turn its attention to alternatives, and they WILL be found.
dwhite
bk4...@hotmail.com
> bk42...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > The real shame is that people aren't doing more about the real
> > problem: we've built an entire civilization that is dependent on
> > fossil fuels, which by their very definition, will someday run out.
> > Honestly, it reads like a Star Trek episode. Now will start the
> > debate about how much longer they will last, which is also completely
> > unanswerable and irrelevant. They WILL run out. And, at the very
> > least, they are just plain dirty. For Christs sake, do we really need
> > to make them out to be the destroyers of the planet in order to
> > develop something better? The planet does not need to be saved - WE
> > DO.
>
> > If as much energy was spent on new technology as is being spent
> > bloviating about AGW and crippling existing industry we would all be
> > driving around in flying cars by now. An individual can be amazingly
> > intelligent but humans in groups are just plain dumb.
>
> He saw this coming and tried to do something about it.http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jimmycartercrisisofconfidenc...
> He got destroyed for his troubles, and the first thing they did when Reagan
> moved into the white house was to tear down the solar panels Carter had
> installed. Then they dismantled all of his energy policies.
> Another example of sanctioned ignorance. They got you to call him a
> liberal, so that nothing he said was valid. Hopefully they rightwing
> assholes wont be able to do to Obama what they did to Carter. From what
> I've seen so far, Obama is going to be a lot tougher.
>
> --http://improve-usenet.org
> No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and
> reasoning as fear. - Edmund Burke
In that video Carter recommends developing oil-shale and domestic oil
production as well as more coal. How would liberals feel about that
today? They've crippled domestic oil production in the U.S. And
that's all I'll say about that, no amount of finger-pointing will do
any good. This is a non-partisan issue. All that has been done isn't
1/100 of what must be done. I can't think of a single leader who has
the right vision. This group seems to be coming close:
www.apolloalliance.org
Bob Keller
bk4...@hotmail.com
> <bk42...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
Assuming the free market and human enterprise hasn't been squashed by
socialism by then.
Can't we get this done without waiting until we're forced to do it,
and without scaremongering. Aren't we smarter than that?
Bob Keller
tdodge
> waters, and upper atmosphere are having a disastrous effect on the
> planet including, and not limited to, radical unnatural worldwide
> effects on climate.
>
no proof of that exists. The theory predicts several conditions that have
been looked for,
and not found. Ocean temps should be up..they are not. Hot spots should
be found
in the atmosphere...thay have not been found. It's a religion, supported
by belief, not facts.
You might as well relate it to the number of big macs consumed. Increased
CO2 follows
warming, not the other way around. These things are not well reported.
BTW..solar output has been increasing.
Saying there are "radical unnatural worldwide effects on climate" when
such changes are
common in the history of the planet is reaching.
_______________________________________________________________________
Ron Shepard
<0ccffa43-c7fa-4931...@k19g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
"bk4...@hotmail.com" <bk4...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> If as much energy was spent on new technology as is being spent
> bloviating
Hmmm, I had to look that one up in the dictionary. :-)
> about AGW and crippling existing industry we would all be
> driving around in flying cars by now. An individual can be amazingly
> intelligent but humans in groups are just plain dumb.
Make that "emission-free flying cars" and I'll invest in your
company (if I have anything left in my mutual fund).
$.02 -Ron Shepard
Ron Shepard
<Xns9BF7E9C19565Cdu...@nomail.afraid.org>,
sittingduck <du...@spamherelots.com> wrote:
> He got destroyed for his troubles, and the first thing they did when Reagan
> moved into the white house was to tear down the solar panels Carter had
> installed. Then they dismantled all of his energy policies.
I think you have these things backwards. The solar, wind, synfuels,
and coal gasification projects were the first to go, then a year or
so later the solar panels were taken down. :-)
But I do agree in general that there have been people with foresight
about fossil fuels all along, but they have have not been the ones
making decisions.
Carter's response to the energy supply, treating it as the "moral
equivalent of war" was based on the 1972 OPEC oil embargo and the
vulnerability it revealed in our economy. That oil embargo in turn
was based on US oil production peaking a couple of years earlier in
1970. I think that most people don't realize that. Domestic oil
production peaked almost 40 years ago, and we have been on a fairly
steady decline since then, all the time steadily increasing oil
usage. Even last year as oil prices peaked around $150 per barrel,
the oil producers were *decreasing* supply, not increasing it, and
even in the economic collapse last year they still managed to report
record-breaking annual profits.
Sometimes foresight is 20/20.
$.02 -Ron Shepard
Ron Shepard
"tdodge" <blue...@stny.rr.com> wrote:
> Ocean temps should be up..they are not.
This is not correct. Surprisingly, it was oceanographers studying
ocean temperature increases that kicked off all of this AGW stuff
back in the 50's. Not climatologists, not meteorologists, not
geologists, it was oceanographers.
Also, a good fraction of the measured increase in sea levels is
attributed to expansion of the water in the ocean due to temperature
increases, not just to melting land ice. And some fraction of the
measured increase in atmospheric CO2 is supposed to be due to
outgassing of the oceans due to increasing temperatures.
Here is a link to some measurements:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
> Hot spots should
> be found
> in the atmosphere...thay have not been found.
I think they were found, but not in the places originally predicted.
I remember reading about this a couple of years ago during the
previous AGW discussions. The controversy now is whether the
measurements were in error or if the wind currents were not
accounted for correctly.
> It's a religion, supported
> by belief, not facts.
This seems to apply to the anti-AGW arguments. See above. These
people seem to believe, as a matter of faith, that burning fossil
fuels is the only way for civilization, or perhaps even all of
humanity, to survive, and they believe this despite all kinds of
data and facts that contradict this faith.
The word "religion" isn't exactly correct. Maybe in specific cases
religion is involved, but not the typical ones. "Religion" implies
worship, ritual, and belief in some supernatural being, and no one
on either side is really doing that. "Faith" seems to be the
correct description, but one can have faith without denying the
facts.
> BTW..solar output has been increasing.
No. Just do a google search. The first link that pops up us:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
which shows that we are now near the bottom of the 11-year solar
cycle and that the last few peaks seem to be decreasing, not
increasing.
In fact, I remember reading somewhere that the sunspot activity in
the past year is well below expectations. So if you combine low
solar activity with the La Nina conditions last year, the world
should be recording some unusually low monthly temperatures over the
past 150-year records. But that is not happening, monthly
temperatures have been consistently near the tops of the ranges over
past few years. That suggests (but does not prove, of course) that
there really is something to this AGW CO2 thing.
None of us here are climate scientists, but some of these things you
read at the denier sites are easily disputed. The ocean temperature
thing above and the solar activity thing are two of the common myths
(and "myth" is perhaps a euphemism for what they say). In either
case, if you just spend 30 seconds doing a google search to find the
real data, then you can identify when someone is lying to you or
misrepresenting the data in some obvious way.
$.02 -Ron Shepard
bk4...@hotmail.com
wrote:
> In article
> <0ccffa43-c7fa-4931-9416-762534430...@k19g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
>
> "bk42...@hotmail.com" <bk42...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > If as much energy was spent on new technology as is being spent
> > bloviating
>
> Hmmm, I had to look that one up in the dictionary. :-)
>
> > about AGW and crippling existing industry we would all be
> > driving around in flying cars by now. An individual can be amazingly
> > intelligent but humans in groups are just plain dumb.
>
> Make that "emission-free flying cars" and I'll invest in your
> company (if I have anything left in my mutual fund).
>
> $.02 -Ron Shepard
John Black
4de43a...@r33g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, ernesto-s...@usa.net
says...
> It seems to me that the perfectly rational position of any reasonable
> AGW advocate (including myself) amounts to two conclusions:
>
> a) climate fluctuations on a global scale have indeed occurred
> throughout the life of our planet
>
> b) at the same time, human-generated pollution of our air, soil,
> waters, and upper atmosphere are having a disastrous effect on the
> planet including, and not limited to, radical unnatural worldwide
> effects on climate.
You are certainly free to believe b) with respect to climate change but that
does not mean there is proof or even a good case for it. The case for it
was actually better 15 years ago than it is today.
John Black
ernesto-s...@usa.net
> does not mean there is proof or even a good case for it.
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
While it quite likely doesn’t apply to many on this commendably sharp
and rational board I’ve noted with bemused wonder that many ultra-
right AGW skeptics also say the “no proof/no case” phrase about
Darwin’s evolution while simultaneously believing beyond doubt in all-
powerful supernatural entities in the sky who can intervene in human
affairs with no proof or even a good case for it.
So, I guess faith and instincts can indeed take over for them
sometimes rather than applying (or demanding) scientific reasoning
which strictly requires experimental evidence and repeatable results.
Hell, all Freethinkers who are seriously and happily pool-addicted
*do* believe in the (adverse) intervention of the Pool Gods when
things aren’t going our customary way. We sometimes just don’t want
to blame ourselves or take the painful, disciplined steps to remedy
our essentially self-sabotaging playing limitations, bad decisions and
misjudgments.
To me, the same thing may unwittingly be at play amongst AGW skeptics
who are unfortunately in some powerful government positions.
Ernie
Dan White
news:625ac185-a176-486a...@v1g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
****
Why are we getting off oil again?
dwhite
Dan White
news:b15cdd56-71b7-4fd1...@p6g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
Hell, all Freethinkers who are seriously and happily pool-addicted
*do* believe in the (adverse) intervention of the Pool Gods when
things aren’t going our customary way.
****
I think our Founding Fathers were pretty good Freethinkers. They were also
quite religious people. Go figure, right?
dwhite
Dan White
news:ron-shepard-AFAE...@forte.easynews.com...
>> Hot spots should
>> be found
>> in the atmosphere...thay have not been found.
>
> I think they were found, but not in the places originally predicted.
> I remember reading about this a couple of years ago during the
> previous AGW discussions. The controversy now is whether the
> measurements were in error or if the wind currents were not
> accounted for correctly.
No, the controversy is over how to hide the fact that the single greatest
signature of AGW, namely a heat island in the tropical troposphere, does not
exist. If this feature does not exist, neither does the current theory of
how CO2 warms the atmosphere.
Something you should be aware of is how every crackpot study that comes
along with evidence of AGW is greated with open arms, and every legit study
that finds "inconvenient" truths must be wrong through some incredibly
arcane logic.
>
> None of us here are climate scientists, but some of these things you
> read at the denier sites are easily disputed. The ocean temperature
> thing above and the solar activity thing are two of the common myths
> (and "myth" is perhaps a euphemism for what they say). In either
> case, if you just spend 30 seconds doing a google search to find the
> real data, then you can identify when someone is lying to you or
> misrepresenting the data in some obvious way.
>
Ron, with all due respect, you need to take your own advice. You have shown
little interest in learning anything beyond what Wikipedia tells you. Kind
of a funny side note - I was chatting with my brother today about Wikipedia,
and he said his daughter's high school won't allow students to use Wikipedia
as a reference due to the abundance of errors.
dwhite
ernesto-s...@usa.net
>quite religious people. Go figure, right?
>dwhite
---------------------------------------------------------
Merriam-Webster Online dictionary:
- Freethinker -
One entry found.
Main Entry: free•think•er
Function: noun
Date: 1692
One who forms opinions on the basis of reason independently of
authority;
Especial meaning: one who doubts or denies religious dogma
-- Ernie
Dan White
realize there was such a specific dictionary definion.
dwhite
<ernesto-s...@usa.net> wrote in message
news:006ac89c-9811-4d3d...@u39g2000pru.googlegroups.com...
John Black
147d6a...@p6g2000pre.googlegroups.com>, ernesto-s...@usa.net
says...
> > You are certainly free to believe b) with respect to climate change but that
> > does not mean there is proof or even a good case for it.
> >
> > John Black
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> and rational board I=3Fve noted with bemused wonder that many ultra-
> right AGW skeptics also say the =3Fno proof/no case=3F phrase about
> Darwin=3Fs evolution while simultaneously believing beyond doubt in all-
> powerful supernatural entities in the sky who can intervene in human
> affairs with no proof or even a good case for it.
Unlrelated strawman number 147.
John Black
bk4...@hotmail.com
> <ernesto-santama...@usa.net> wrote in message
George Washington played billiards.
Coincidence? I think not.
;-)
Bob Keller
tdodge
coast will
get the big earthquake, the Yosemite supervolcano will take out 2/3 of
the continent, the New Madrid fault will slip, taking out survivors, the
east coast get tsunamied when that Azores
island falls into the Atlantic, Kracatoa (sp?) will cause a global winter,
and anyone left will feel the asteroid hit, if they're on the other side
of the planet.
/serious deep voice on/ It's not a matter of if, it's only a matter of
when!
So, if we live long enough to worry about global warming, there is still
no problem.
We die, and balance is restored. What's the big deal? The sky's been
falling forever.
REPENT! get a sandwich board or sumpin.
oh, yeah...forgot the gamma ray burst.
Dan White
"tdodge" <blue...@stny.rr.com> wrote in message
news:q65dc6x...@recgroups.com...
Fast Larry
> LOL.
>
> "tdodge" <blues...@stny.rr.com> wrote in message
>
> news:q65dc6x...@recgroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > oh, yeah...forgot the gamma ray burst.
>
> > ____________________________________________________________________
>
> - Show quoted text -
Like Hu gives a flying fook about the fookin eskimos. Give them a
road map to Edison, New Joyzee and have them mush in there, end of
problemo.