Daylight exacerbates warning
You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two. This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ? Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.
CONNIE M. MESKIMEN / Hot Springs
Well, that's convincing. But, um, Connie - it was a Republican Congress that introduced Daylight Savings to the US...
UPDATE: Intended as satire - I swear, the smart and the stupid are so difficult to tell apart these days...
5 comments:
Unless you know what hydrate is, you don't know the truth about global warming:
Hydrate contains twice the carbon of all fossil fuel, and whereas fossil fuel needs to be burned to emit GHG, hydrate needs only to melt.
Briefly, carbon in the soil is "eaten" by microbes, and in the absence of oxygen the microbes emit methane (CH4). Some of that methane gets trapped in ice called hydrate.
There is about 400 billion tons of methane trapped in permafrost hydrate (20% of the land on earth is permafrost). 50% of the surface permafrost is expected to melt by 2050, and over 90% by 2100.
A release of less than 30 billion tons of methane would be like doubling the CO2 in the air.
Worse, there is an estimated 10,000 billion tons of methane hydrate under the ocean. Substantial quantities of this has melted before with catastrophic results (55 million years ago-the PETM ushered in the Age of Mammals, and 250 million years ago-the "Great Dying" killed most life on earth).
In other words, the carbon cycle has been upset before (possibly by volcanic eruptions), causing a chain reaction. Mankind's GHG emissions are over 30 times stronger a trigger than past severe runaway global warming events. This means the chain reaction will happen sooner, unfold faster, and therefore be much, much more severe.
Yes, I've read John Barnes' "Mother of Storms". Thank you.
I don't get why people keep posting messages about the methane release from melting permafrost.
I mean, WE KNOW ALREADY. This is not a revelation. Hell, we've known for a while now. We're screwed, we know.
*sigh*
Oh, and you're really right btw, it's not that this is satire or not, it's that really, we can't tell anymore which is which, that is the terrifying thing.
Only human beings have the ability to actually succeed in surpassing that which we had previously conceived of as the most insanely stupid thing possible and still be real.
I don't get why people keep posting messages about the methane release from melting permafrost.
And you know that if we slide over that particular tipping point, the wingnuts will deny it is happening, right up to the point where they flip into blaming Teh Left for it.
Yeah, telling satire from the real thing is pretty damn hard these days.
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