CO2 the Critical Issue

Have you seen the relentless television commercials from the fossil fuel industry showing former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush standing together agreeing on approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline and how all that energy is good for America? Well, here’s a little truth in advertising that they don’t want you to know about.
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, humans increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere by 117 parts per million (PPM) by burning fossil fuels. For over 800,000 years before that CO2 levels hovered around 280 PPM. Now because we pump 90 million tons of CO2 up there every 24 hours, CO2 concentrations have risen to an average of 397 PPM and frequently spike into the 400 PPM range. It won’t be long until that will become the average as CO2 continues increasing. The reason CO2 levels are so important is because the more CO2 in the atmosphere the more moisture gets trapped up there heating up the planet causing extreme weather events.
Scientists say that we can’t put much more than another 565 gigatons (million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere without passing the 2 degree Celsius limit that will cause calamitous climate events. Financial analysts calculate over 2,795 gigatons of CO2 contained in readily available oil, gas and coal reserves. That’s five times more CO2 than we can afford to burn and expect to maintain a survivable planet.
Burning fossil fuels has already increased the average global temperature from preindustrial levels by 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit), taking us almost half way to the 2 degree Celsius boundary, and we are already experiencing sea level rise, extreme storms, floods, mud slides, droughts, dust storms, and wildfires around the planet. And most alarming, 75 percent of the Arctic ice cap melted in the summer of 2012. If we keep burning fossil fuels at the current rate, scientists predict we will raise the global average temperature to at least 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) within the next 60 to 80 years. For humanity that will be disastrous.
Out of sheer survival reflex the fossil industry heavily financed a campaign to buy politicians and confuse the public about climate change through think tanks like the Heartland Institute and television and radio shows like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
In spite of that, ninety seven percent the world’s climate scientists agree that we can’t allow the global average temperature to increase above 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from the preindustrial average without causing very serious consequences for humanity. To put that into perspective, it’s like 7 out of 10 doctors telling you that you’d better urgently address a serious health issue. Would you follow the advice of the three doctors who don’t see a problem or the seven doctors that do? 
 At this time no one seems concerned about CO2 levels. We’re told that we need cheap oil and coal to secure our energy future. Not considered, there is enough carbon just in the Canadian Tar Sands oil deposits to send the global temperature well above the 2 degree limit which is why environmentalists are protesting the Keystone XL Pipe Line. We just can’t afford to burn that much carbon and expect to maintain a livable planet.
A smart energy policy would be to tax all carbon at its source of extraction distributing that money directly to our tax-paying citizens to cover the increase in price that fossil fuels will incur until we achieve 100% clean energy. We also must switch the $90 billion in taxpayer subsidies that the government currently gives to the fossil industry over to researching and developing clean energy that will lead to a livable planet.
The bottom line: If we don’t leave carbon in the ground humans won’t be around!

Where do you stand on nuclear power

Please watch this video from the April 29 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000002847044/nuclear-power8217s-promise-and-peril.html?emc=edit_th_20140429&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=50791677

Carbon levels are the critical issue

Leave carbon in the ground or humans won't be around. Please watch & share this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxQNy8G1cIQ

Representative Jim Gerlach wasn't even in Washington when he was suppose to be on the job!

September 25, 2013
Today, I ran into Representative Jim Gerlach in the parking lot at Victory Brewery in Downingtown at about 1:15 PM. Considering, that I have been asking his Office Manager in his District office in Lionville, Edward Schmidt, for a personal meeting with Gerlach for over 6 months and never have gotten one, I decided to take advantage of this opportunity to air my issues. It seems sometimes providence has a way of shining your way. J

My first question was why can’t I get a face-to-face meeting with you? He immediately got on his cell phone and “appeared” to be sending a text to Ed to set up a meeting with me. He’s either incredibly adept at texting or it was just another ploy to get me off his back. Then he said to me, “Didn’t you visit me in Washington a few weeks ago?” I said “no, first of all I couldn’t be there that day so I contributed a letter to you on my behalf, but you weren’t there when the others visited anyway.”

I told him I am incredibly disappointed on what is going on in Washington. Immediately he said it is all Obama’s fault. He said Obama is the worst leader ever in the presidency. I asked what about the fact that the House said they would vote against everything Obama proposes so that he would fail. He shot back that Obama has never reached across the aisle and has never once come to the House to talk to them. I responded that Obama invited the Republican’s to the White House and the Republicans didn’t come. He responded by saying, you don’t understand because you are not there. I’m there!

Then I asked him why the Republican House won’t support green energy legislation and he said some vague remarks about how we need a bill that will wean us from fossil fuels in the future. I told him about how CO2 levels hit 400 PPM twice last February and his response was, “well we haven’t had any big hurricanes yet this year.” My reply, do you know about the monsoon that is happening right now in Japan?” His response, these storms happen all the time and they have been happening throughout history.

So it’s obvious, he’s really not on the right page with global warming.

I guess my only satisfaction is, I caught him off guard and I found out where he really stands on global warming.

My last question to him was why are you here in Downingtown? Shouldn’t you be in Washington, after all I’m one of many who is paying your salary? He said, well I’m going down tonight.

So much for representation! I’d love to run against this guy, if the Democratic Party will support me better than they did Trivedi. He is very beatable in spite of his gerrymandered district.  How bad do the Democrats want to gain a seat in Congress?

July 2013 average temperature is higher than Julys in the 20th Century.

According to NOAA the average temperature for July 2013 was 74.3 degrees F. This was .8 degrees F. higher than July temperatures during the 20th Century.

Read the Declaration of Independence on July 4th

July 4, 1776, The middle of paragraph 2 of the Declaration of Independence reads: "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers and the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Well people, I think we are there now.

Heartland Institute is a Demonic Organization

The Heartland Institute, a conservative free market Chicago based “think tank”, is probably more responsible than the Cato Institute or the George C. Marshall Institute for confusing the public about global warming and stalling congress from addressing its threat to humanity.

 In March 2013, in time for Earth Day, Heartland mailed a package of bogus information to, according to them, every school teacher, college professor, politician, and media contact in America attempting to vilify established peer reviewed science and legitimate scientists with their lies and misinformation. Heartland was also on a rampage trying to dissuade teachers from teaching science in America’s school rooms.

This package contained a book entitled, The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism. It also included a 10 minute DVD entitled Unstoppable Solar Cycles: The Real Story of Greenland, a general brochure of the Heartland Institute, and a postcard slamming Al Gore showing a bogus CO2 time line claiming to prove that the planet is cooling, a claim running totally against all legitimate scientific observations.

This mailing campaign is extremely audacious considering the immense damage they did to themselves during their 7^th Annual Conference on Climate Change in Chicago when they posted an add on a billboard along the Eisenhower Expressway with a picture of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski saying, “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” They also planned to run follow-up billboards with Osama bin Laden, Charles Manson, and Fidel Castro.

Heartland’s justification for the ads, “Because what these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the “mainstream” media, and liberal politicians say about global warming.”

It is well known that oil tycoons the Koch Brothers, EXXON, and other fossil related companies heavily finance the Heartland Institute.  But after the billboard debacle 22 smaller corporate donors pulled their support. Considering the diabolical intentions of the Heartland Institute it is amazing that AT&T, Microsoft, Comcast, and the US Chamber of Commerce still finance their shenanigans. Shame on them! 

Now, to conceal donor contributions they filter the money through organizations like the Philanthropy Roundtable, Donors Trust, and Donors Capital Fund. While the investigation is going on at the IRS for stalling Tea Party nonprofit applications, they should also investigate the Heartland Institutes IRS violations.

Heartland’s diabolical fame began with their alliance with the tobacco industry. They worked with Philip Morris to create doubt about the science linking second-hand smoke to health risks. Then they nefariously defended RJ Reynolds’ “Joe Camel” campaign targeting kids to start smoking by making it look cool to smoke Joe Camel Cigarettes.  They used their scientist Fred Singer to dispute that tobacco is a health risk and now they cart Singer out to dispute the peer reviewed science about climate change.   

In contrast to Heartland’s claims, a report released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) about 2012 carbon dioxide emissions show that world CO2 concentrations rose 1.4 percent in 2012 to a record high of 31.6 billion tons. At this rate of increase the world is on track to push global temperatures up to between 6.5 and 9.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Climate scientists warn that to maintain a livable planet we cannot exceed a 3.6 degree Fahrenheit increase. This report is bad news - very bad news - and we haven’t even begun to deal with CO2 emissions yet. In fact, we pump 90 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every 24 hours by burning fossil fuels and CO2 concentration in the atmosphere averages 397 parts per million (PPM) and twice has spiked to over 400 PPM, the highest since humans have inhabited the planet.

Besides fossil fuel industry money, what drives people at the Heartland Institute to be so diabolical? They are profoundly responsible for delaying actions that would cut CO2 and limit the impacts of climate change. Their actions have condemned future generations, our children and grandchildren, to an unpredictable and perilous world.