Year 2, Month 3, Day 11: Never Bet Against The House; The House Always Wins

The Bangkok Post runs a story detailing some of the unambiguous links between global warming and our crazy weather. Newspapers in Asia are overwhelmingly more likely to just print the actual facts without a lot of he-said/she-said false equivalence to muddy up the argument.

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Climate change is not only making the planet warmer, it is also making snowstorms stronger and more frequent, US scientists said on Tuesday.

“Heavy snowstorms are not inconsistent with a warming planet,” said scientist Jeff Masters, as part of a conference call with reporters and colleagues convened by the Union of Concern Scientists.

“In fact, as the Earth gets warmer and more moisture gets absorbed into the atmosphere, we are steadily loading the dice in favor of more extreme storms in all seasons, capable of causing greater impacts on society.”

Steadily loading the dice. Yup. And we are a species of inveterate and thoughtless gamblers. Hoo boy.

Sent March 3:

The scientific evidence linking global warming to the world’s increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather is accumulating almost as fast as the record-breaking snowfalls that brought large parts of the United States to a standstill over the past six weeks. But it is increasingly clear that there are some whom mountains of incontrovertible evidence cannot convince. With the world’s richest and most powerful corporations in positions of influence in print and broadcast media, a huge array of persuasive technologies is used to undermine the scientific truth of global climate change. It is both a tragedy and a crime, for the sooner the citizens and leaders of all nations are able to take meaningful steps both to slow global warming and to mitigate its effects, the more likely we (all six billion of us) are to survive. In their thirst for short-term profits, these corporate giants may ultimately doom themselves as well.

Warren Senders