Floods

New Scientist Report Shows Massive Climate Changes Going On, Time For Action!

Ronald 1 Comment

The battle over climate change continues, and a new report by 300 scientists makes clear for everyone and anyone who cares about the future national security of the United States, that dramatic action is needed!

To ignore the obvious evidence of devastating climate change already affecting the globe and the nation is to be an ostrich with its head in the sand.

The worsening reality of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, sinkholes, droughts, forest fires, avalanches, landslides, and glacier meltings at a very rapid rate is a warning sign of what is happening, and much more rapidly than was predicted.

The sad truth, however, is that Republicans and conservatives and those in the energy industries, are vehemently opposed to any action, claiming there is no climate change going on, just normal changes that happen over time but are not extreme in the long run of mankind’s time on earth.

So the battle of the Obama Administration on this issue will face the same stalemate, gridlock, and conspiracy theories that has been visited on everything the President engages in, while trying to promote necessary change!

Political Failures: Gun Control And Climate Change

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Our country is hungering for real political leadership, and instead, we go from one crisis to another,without any cooperation to bring about solutions.

Someday in the distant future, or maybe not so distant, we will have Americans look back and wonder why the country went into such rapid decline, with such a poor reaction by our political leaders.

We are a nation being torn apart by gun violence, with about 10,000 murders per year by gun, plus thousands more victims of guns by other methods than murder.

When we get a massacre such as the one in Aurora, Colorado, two days ago, we focus on it for a few days or weeks, and then seem to just go back to our old ways of neglecting the issue, and doing nothing about it.

We have corporations, and the political leaders who benefit from favoring them, who do whatever they can to maximize profits, and have no concern about climate change, even when we now see an emerging drought that threatens food supplies and is causing a spike in prices that will harm the middle class and the poor. Sure, the wealthy might have to pay more also, but they have unlimited supplies of money to meet any emergency, just as they had during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Both gun violence in Aurora, Colorado, and the drought now emerging, on top of floods, tornadoes, forest fires, and hurricanes, threaten our very existence as a nation, and somehow, we must demand from our leaders that they stop promoting themselves, and start dealing with the reality of life in America in the 21st century, or face the danger of chaos and anarchy!

Dead Fish And Birds, Destruction Of Trees, Massive Forest Fires And Flooding, Record Setting Temperatures: Is This Not Global Warming, Senator James Inhofe Of Oklahoma?

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Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma is the leading global warming denier among all of the critics of environmentalists who warn us of the danger of greenhouse gases.

We hear a constant drone from him, many other Republican politicians, and conservative talk show hosts, who refuse to accept that what is happening in the earth’s atmosphere is a serious environmental crisis which will only get worse. Backed by the oil and other energy industries that have no concern except for profits, they have prevented any cooperation with other nations, or any serious attack on the growing problem which is rapidly affecting millions of Americans, and eventually will totally consume us, if no action is taken, or plans made for a response.

We see dead fish, birds and wildlife; destruction of trees on a stupendous scale; massive forest fires and flooding; record setting temperatures which are killing the poorer among us who cannot escape the oppressive heat; along with the rapid melting of glaciers around the world, and all we get is obstructionism.

This is a moral issue that requires true leadership, or else the planet is doomed, as conditions will get worse, and our children and grandchildren will look back at this time and wonder why we allowed lowlifes such as Senator Inhofe to blockade action, based upon their own greed, selfishness, and ignorance!

FEMA And Natural Disaster Funding: Political “Football” For The Republicans?

Ronald 6 Comments

The Federal Emergency Management Agency faces a daunting task dealing with all of the natural disasters that have hit America in 2011!

Hurricane Irene was the TENTH natural disaster of this year costing at least $1 billion, and there are four months to go!

The total natural disaster cost is reaching into the 40s and 50s in billions, with Irene estimated to be one of top ten all time natural disasters!

And this is on top of the tornadoes, floods, droughts, wildfires that have plagued us this year, and not including the Atlantic Earthquake or the new menace of Tropical Storm Lee menacing Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the panhandle of Florida!

The hurricane season is in full swing, and it looks as if there will be more tropical storms or hurricanes named than any year since 2005!

In the midst of this series of natural disasters, we are seeing Congressional Republicans playing politics with human suffering, protesting that FEMA is reaching its budget limit, and there is debate about whether they will gain additional needed funds to match the problems at hand.

Congressman Ron Paul has said FEMA is not necessary at all, and others are acting as if it is another financial boondoggle, when it is performing far better under Barack Obama than it did under George W. Bush.

Will there have to be a battle between President Obama and John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Tea Party Republicans over such a basic need as government coming to the aid of victims of nature?

Is there any common decency left in the opposition party, or shall many unfortunate Americans become the victims of their narrow mindedness and pettiness?

We will see next week when Congress comes back from its month long vacation to deal with the many problems they just dropped, so as to go on vacation for a month, while many Americans could not afford a vacation!

The Arizona Dust Storm: Hints Of A New Dust Bowl As In 1930s?

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The news yesterday of the Arizona Dust Storm over Phoenix, one of the largest metropolitan areas in America, was stunning.

It demonstrated once again what a crazy year we are having weather wise–with devastating and frequent tornadoes, major flooding, wildfires–and now a massive dust storm at least 50 miles wide and churned by near hurricane force winds!

It also reminds us of the dust storms over the rural Great Plains during the 1930s, which led to mass migration to California as an escape.

Hopefully, this Arizona dust storm is a fluke, but it could also be a forerunner of the future, of shortages of rain leading to many metropolitan areas in the Southwest and the Southeast being subjected to massive dust storms that threaten lives and health of millions of Americans in urban areas, not the comparatively small numbers of people in rural areas, as in the 1930s!

America is certainly starting to see the effects of climate change or global warming, no matter how much the naysayers deny it!

House Republicans Hold Back On Disaster Relief And Emergency Preparedness, Insist On Budget Cuts

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The House Republican leadership. led by Eric Cantor, Majority Leader, is insisting that there be budget cuts to match any increase in spending on disaster relief and emergency preparedness.

This outrage is being perpetrated as the Midwest and the South face the most daunting natural disasters we have ever seen in just the past few months!

The onslaught of hundreds of tornadoes in the past two months, including the most disastrous in Alabama and Missouri, along with the flood crisis faced along the Mississippi River all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, is a national emergency of massive proportions!

When a natural disaster occurs, reaction by first responders, police, firefighters, and paramedics should be unlimited without any consideration of budget costs!

If government cannot provide aid to the needy and the desperate in a time of trauma, then what good is government at all? It is NOT the job of government solely to defend the nation from outside attack and internal man made threats to our national security. It is ALSO to come to the aid of the needy, the poor, and the disadvantaged when a natural disaster occurs, without forcing budget cuts to match the disaster’s costs!

The truth is that there is no way around the fact that tax INCREASES will be necessary, whether the American people want them or not. It is government’s job to do what is “necessary and proper”, for the “common defense and general welfare”, Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the “elastic clause”!

The Republican Party is showing its true colors in so many ways, but particularly in “blackmailing” the Democrats to force cuts in the midst of a national emergency! How despicable and disgraceful!