Year 2, Month 11, Day 26: Cluck Old Hen!

The Portsmouth (NH) Herald notes a locally-based conference addressing regional implications of the IPCC report:

PORTSMOUTH — The likelihood of more frequent and severe weather events, increased asthma and the death of crucial plant life in Great Bay are all realities on the Seacoast.

That was among the conclusions reached by experts who were in Portsmouth on Thursday at a conference sponsored by the New Hampshire Carbon Action Alliance.

“Climate Change and New Hampshire’s Seacoast” brought together professors, engineers, doctors and scientists who provided statistical evidence to suggest a correlation between climate change and a number of issues facing the region.

Their talks were framed, many said, by the recent draft document by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change that links man-made climate change to the extreme weather conditions in much of the world in recent years.

I think I come off as a bit of a scold here. On the other hand, who could resist the allure of “carbon dioxide chickens”? Sent Nov. 22:

There have been many failures in our civilization’s handling of the crises posed by global climate change. Our politicians have failed in their responsibility to the common good, and their corporate paymasters have failed to look beyond the demands of their next quarterly profit reports. Our reporters, seduced by the ease of he-said, she-said stenography, have failed to live up to their journalistic responsibilities. And we, as citizens, have sustained a collective failure of imagination: unable to conceive the consequences of a runaway greenhouse effect, we have chosen to pretend the carbon dioxide chickens will never come home to roost.

The failure of those who insist that “climate change” is a liberal conspiracy rests in their inability to recognize that scientific reality trumps conservative ideology. But if humanity is to succeed as a species we must stop avoiding the truth of the climate crisis, and start making profound changes in our ways of life. Recent climate studies from organizations such as the International Energy Agency and the IPCC make it clear: the time for failure is past.

Warren Senders