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As emergency responders in Oklahoma work through the night tending to those whose lives have been shattered by Monday’s deadly tornadoes, a few individuals have seized on today’s tragedy as an opportunity to take shots at Republican lawmakers.
Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, for example, while attacking the GOP on Monday for being “anti-science” and for being the party of “climate deniers” worked the Oklahoma tornadoes into his speech. [/b][/i]
“So, you may have a question for me,” the senator said. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings and disgrace ourselves?”
He continued:
I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. We are stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover.
And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. It hits Oregon with acidified seas, it hits Montana with dying forests.
“So, like it or not, we’re in this together,” he added. “You drag America with you to your fate”:
Dr. Marshall Shepherd, the president of the American Meteorological Society and someone who is not shy about taking on climate skeptics, put it this way in a tweet: Climate change is real issue but can we not dilute the issue with that right now. No links to tornadoes.
http://science.time.com/2013/05/21/tornado/
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archer wrote: Are you trying to rival LJ by starting a thread of your own? Only you found a democratic senator to base your thread on. There goes all your righteous indignation over LJ's thread.
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Science Chic wrote: Typical of the right too. And while he's incorrect about the tornadoes (which I'd already agreed with you about, as did The grist and Huffington Post, so why the continued outrage?), he's spot on about the rest.
We use Sonos here at the house and hubby turned on something that sounded like NPR this past weekend that wasn't, and it was a representative from the local water company discussing water restrictions and what that means exactly for homeowners - use, violations, etc. This person was stating that there was a Stage 2 drought in effect which meant watering only once a week for 20 minutes max on a specified day based on the last digit of your house number, and he mentioned that last year was the 1st time they'd reached Stage 2 drought conditions since implementing them. He also said that if they didn't get rain at least once a week for the rest of the summer, it was likely that they'd reach Stage 3 drought level by the end of this summer or beginning of next, and that meant watering only once every other week.
I asked hubby if that was a CO station (as he's fond of finding eclectic stations from around the world, Polish polka, German pop, and TX old-time country being his faves), and found out that it was a TX station. I'd thought so, b/c our Denver water notice didn't have those restrictions listed.
So, when crops fail and summer fires burn extensively, how are we going to pay for this TLGT? Our good looks and charm? Sadly, we're using up our credit over-borrowing and we Americans are the biggest wasters of energy and food, so what's your solution?
Hurricane Sandy absolutely was influenced by climate change, we had 19 storms last year that rated naming - the trend is that they are becoming more frequent and stronger - yet we keep throwing billions to rebuild in the same coastal spots that are at high-risk of flooding again. And we taxpayers are required to pay for that - there's no forcing homeowners who choose to remain to pay for the risk themselves and remove us from that responsibility, it's law. So yes, we are being dragged down and it will eventually bankrupt us unless we start drastically reducing our GHG emissions and curbing our fossil fuel use - something none of our reps have the stomach for b/c it means going up against the most wealthy and powerful lobbyists and corporations who can pay enough to cost them their seat for the next yes-man. So what's your solution? Keep denying global warming? Yeah, that'll work...
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Science Chic wrote: Typical of the right too. And while he's incorrect about the tornadoes (which I'd already agreed with you about, as did The grist and Huffington Post, so why the continued outrage?), he's spot on about the rest.
We use Sonos here at the house and hubby turned on something that sounded like NPR this past weekend that wasn't, and it was a representative from the local water company discussing water restrictions and what that means exactly for homeowners - use, violations, etc. This person was stating that there was a Stage 2 drought in effect which meant watering only once a week for 20 minutes max on a specified day based on the last digit of your house number, and he mentioned that last year was the 1st time they'd reached Stage 2 drought conditions since implementing them. He also said that if they didn't get rain at least once a week for the rest of the summer, it was likely that they'd reach Stage 3 drought level by the end of this summer or beginning of next, and that meant watering only once every other week.
I asked hubby if that was a CO station (as he's fond of finding eclectic stations from around the world, Polish polka, German pop, and TX old-time country being his faves), and found out that it was a TX station. I'd thought so, b/c our Denver water notice didn't have those restrictions listed.
So, when crops fail and summer fires burn extensively, how are we going to pay for this TLGT? Our good looks and charm? Sadly, we're using up our credit over-borrowing and we Americans are the biggest wasters of energy and food, so what's your solution?
Hurricane Sandy absolutely was influenced by climate change, we had 19 storms last year that rated naming - the trend is that they are becoming more frequent and stronger - yet we keep throwing billions to rebuild in the same coastal spots that are at high-risk of flooding again. And we taxpayers are required to pay for that - there's no forcing homeowners who choose to remain to pay for the risk themselves and remove us from that responsibility, it's law. So yes, we are being dragged down and it will eventually bankrupt us unless we start drastically reducing our GHG emissions and curbing our fossil fuel use - something none of our reps have the stomach for b/c it means going up against the most wealthy and powerful lobbyists and corporations who can pay enough to cost them their seat for the next yes-man. So what's your solution? Keep denying global warming? Yeah, that'll work...
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Whatevergreen wrote: I think if I had to re-build in OK, I would work a basement into my budget. There is planning for what might never come and there is planning for what is likely to happen.
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