Zephaniah’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Moderation in childbearing should be a choice for everyone. The previous US administration for years refused to release US funds for helping people in developing nations make the choice to limit their families. The Obama administration has adjusted that policy. However there is still a huge need for assistance to help people in poverty afford to limit their families. Another policy issue is US tax structure which rewards people with tax deductions for having children. Shouldn't tax deductions for children be limited to the first child, and maybe for the second but not the third or more. Society shares the cost for every person alive. The Earth cannnot support the six and a half billion people on it now, much less the nine billion that it will soon have.On Ask Umbra on big families posted 2 months ago 48 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Answering skepticism

  President GW Bush, called global warming “a serious problem, and said we need to “get beyond the debate” and deploy new technologies to curb greenhouse gases.  

  John McCain said “The evidence is compelling””It’s serious and it’s generated by human activity.” Republican Gov Schwarzenegger leads in action to counter climate change.

   

  The Supreme Court stated: “The harms associated with climate change are serious and

  well recognized.: a rise in sea levels, severe and irreversible changes to natural ecosystems, a significant reduction in winter snowpack with direct and important

  economic consequences, and increases in the spread of disease and the ferocity of weather events.”  Mass v. EPA April 2007  In making  this ruling, the federal Supreme Court said that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not dispute the existence of a causal connection between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Therefore, EPA’s refusal to regulate such emissions “contributes” to Massachusetts’ injuries presenting a risk of harm to Massachusetts that is both “actual” and “imminent.”

   

  Pope  Benedict XVI said in January 2001:

  “Man has …devastated wooded plains and valleys, polluted waters, disfigured the earth’s habitat, made the air unbreathable, disturbed the hydrogeological and atmospheric systems, turned luxuriant areas into deserts and undertaken forms of unrestrained industrialization degrading that ‘flowerbed’…which is the earth, our dwelling place.”

  In July 2008 he said;

  We must respect the inner laws of creation, of this earth, we must learn these laws and obey these laws if we wish to survive…our earth speaks to us and we must listen if we want to survive and decipher the message of the earth.

   

  National Academies of Science of US, Canada, China, Japan, France, Germany, Russia, England,  India and many more countries agree that the climate is warming and the cause is carbon dioxide emissions.

   

  The scientific evidence is pretty simple.

  When coal, oil, natural gas and other things burn, carbon dioxide is emitted.  

  More of these fossil fuels have been burned over the past 130 years than ever in the history of mankind, indeed ever in geological history.

  We know that Earth's normal concentration of CO2 is 280 parts per million, and that that concentration has increased to 387 ppm since people started burning fossil fuels and is increasing 2 ppm every year now.

  We know that in every instance in geological history when CO2 went up, so did temperatures and vice versa; it is a feedback mechanism.

  Plotting this increase as it will progress over the next 40 years puts the world over 450 ppm by mid century. 450 ppm is more than has occurred at any time in millions of years and will coincide with earth surface temperatures higher than at any time in millions of years.

   

  Some of the extra CO2  goes into the ocean, as carbonic acid, now stopping shellfish and coral reefs from forming.

  We would see even higher temperatures if there were not so much smog.

  Should we wait to stop burning fossil fuels until the seas have risen 5 feet and southern US is a desert?

   

  Where is your courage?  We are in trouble, and every person who denies the facts makes it more difficult to stop the catastrophe that will happen if we do not change our ways.

   

  I too spent lots of time reading the climate skeptics. I kept hoping that they were right. However, I found that almost none of them were atmospheric scientists who had studied the relevant science. A geologist studies the formation of the earth, and often how to get fossil fuels out of it, an economist studies the trading of money. They are scientists, but they are not credentialed in the study of the atmosphere. I would not have a dentist operate on my hip, or ask a cardiologist (heart doctor) to treat my child’s cancer.

   

  I also learned that many of the scientists denying the need to take action against global warming had received grants from fossil fuel companies spending hundreds of millions of dollars  on a massive and somewhat successful  public relations campaign to convince people that this is not an issue we need to tackle now.

   

  As a kid, I walked, bicycled, grew vegetables, made my own games, borrowed books from the library, visited with neighbors and had a wonderful life. A lifestyle where people have to buy tons of stuff, go lots of places, and otherwise use lots of electricity and fuel is not required for health and happiness. I hope my grandchildren will enjoy a simpler, healthier, cleaner sustainable lifestyle.

   

   

   

   

   

   

  On How should you talk to your cab driver about cap-and-trade? posted 4 months ago 59 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  What to say to anyone who will listen:

  Our taxes have paid for scientists to study this. At globalchange.gov you can read the reports. There is no dispute over the science of climate change, only over whether we can take action that benefits everybody, or whether we will destroy our civilization fighting over slices of the pie.

  Living things on Earth are now being destroyed by the emissions from burning fossil fuels. This is happening, it is not just a possibility. There has been no debate since 1896 over the science, when Arhenius' brilliant mathematical calculations predicted that the Earth would warm as burning coal and oil released more carbon dioxide than plants could absorb. (CO2).

  'Don't worry, the oceans will absorb it all", was the untested assumption for decades. Then, in the1950s  scientists found out that the ocean was releasing CO2 and not absorbing it all. Shortly thereafter, a discovery of a way to measure the concentration of CO2 in the air  proved that Arhenius was right. The earliest predictions of temperature rise made in the 1970s have come true much faster and higher than expected.

  If your child were afflicted with an unusual and serious disease, wouldn't you study it and try to find the best treatment possible?

  Earth's temperature has now risen nearly a couple degrees Fahrenheit, and the specialists say that it will go up between 4 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, depending on how much fossil fuel is burned. Living plants and creatures, including people, are sensitive to temperature changes. When a human body temperature goes up 6 degrees, it's time for intensive care and prayers.  Same thing with Earth. Seafood may be the first to go, apparently, as CO2 in the ocean means carbonic acid which dissolves shells.

  The guilt inducing factor is that WE KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO DO: STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS. We also know that if we do not start reducing CO2 emissions now, it will be too late.

  We all participate. Every time I cook food, drive to the grocery, turn on the furnace, bathe, or use my computer I am using the burning of fossil fuels for my lifestyle.

  I have tried to reduce my carbon footprint, I walk and take the bus more, hang laundry to dry, buy in bulk, cook at home, grow vegetables, use a solar cooker and wear a wet t-shirt instead of turning on an air conditioner.

  But I know that I still cause a huge amount of warming, and my taxes are making it worse because they are used to subsidize the fossil fuel industry. Even in the Cap and Trade bill there is support for clean energy like solar, wind and geothermal but also  huge grants to the Coal industry.

  So, do I quit and go water skiing??  No. I log on to a couple organizations which have dedicated, intelligent, and informed people studying how to preserve their future. And every week I send a couple letters to Congress, other Government Officials, and CEOs of corporations. If enough people did this, we could counter the pressure of the fossil fuel lobby and get legislation that actually solves the problem.

  You really can help!!!  The Cap and Trade bill is not perfect, but you can't ride a bicycle until it gets rolling. We need to tell Congress to keep the good parts and scrap the bad parts.

  So get on line.  Go to an action site at  1Sky, or Union of Concerned Scientists, or Natural Resources Defense Council, or Greenpeace and send messages, There are letters there, already written, with excellent research to read.  Make your voice heard.

  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

   

  On How should you talk to your cab driver about cap-and-trade? posted 4 months ago 59 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  SLUGS  just disappear when dried crumbled EGGSHELLS surround their favorite plants!! I almost feel sorry for the slugs, but the lettuce, arugula and sorrel are flourishing.

  On A guide to non-toxic pest control posted 4 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  During the debate on the climate bill in the House of Representatives, NOT ONE Representative quoted the scientific facts of climate change. No social movement  succeeds without informed support.

  What if we assumed that if people know the truth they would make the right choices, and teach them the numbers. It I become really ill, I want the doctor to tell me, so I can try to heal. 

  Preaching makes people's eye glaze but questions provoke attention. Please let me know what reactions you get, if you try asking these questions. [Answers are in parentheses]

  1. What is the normal temperature of your body?  [  98.6oF ]

  2. When you take your temperature with a thermometer and it’s a degree or two higher than normal what do you think? [You’re sick]

  3. Do you know the average temperature of the surface of the Earth? [about 60oFahrenheit]

  4. Do you know how much the Earth’s normal temperature has increased in the last 100 years since people started fossil fuels?  [One and one half degrees Fahrenheit]

  5. Do you know what gas gets added to the air when oil, coal and natural gas (fossil fuels) burn? [carbon dioxide]

  6. Do you know how much the normal amount of carbon dioxide in the air has increased in the last 100 years since people started burning fossil fuels?  [ increased from 280 parts per million to 387 ppm ] 

  7. Carbon dioxide is increasing in the air how much every year now? [2 ppm every year]

  8. Do you know how high Earth’s normal temperature will to go up in the next 100 years, depending on how soon people stop burning fossil fuels? [Between 4oF and 9 o F]

  9, If your body gets a temperature that high, what do you think might happen to you? [          ]

  10 How do you think other animals and plants on Earth will react to temperature rises that high?  [      ]

  10. Do you know what we need to do to stop the rising temperatures? [Stop burning fossil fuels, switch to energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal, or wave, that do not add carbon dioxide to the air]

  This is a simplified version obviously, but I find it is as much as I can get anyone to hear. Maybe they will pay more attention, maybe log on to information sites like globalchange.gov or take action at USC.org  Union of Concerned Scientists, or NRDC.org Natural Resources Defense Council, or Greenpeace or Sierra Club or read Grist's 'How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.' 

  Try it and tell me what you think.

   

   

  On Why the climate bill is in trouble (and how to help) posted 4 months, 1 week ago 2 Responses