Global warming severest in Arctic:
Four-year, eight-country scientific study
Four-year, eight-country scientific study
The long-awaited report, to be discussed at this month's meeting in Iceland of the eight-country Arctic Council, lists 10 key findings:
-The average Arctic temperature has increased twice as much as that of the rest of the world over the past few decades, likely bringing heavier precipitation, shorter and warmer winters and much reduced snow and ice cover that will probably last centuries.
-Arctic climate changes will affect the rest of the world, as the melting of highly reflective snow and ice increases the overall heat absorption of the planet and glacial meltwater raises the sea levels and disrupts ocean currents.
-Habitat for marine animals will shrink, threatening some species such as polar bears with extinction by the end of the century, while other species will move north. Arctic fisheries may become more productive.
-Coastal communities will face increasing erosion from heavier storm seasons and melting permafrost.
-Reduced sea ice could lead to heavier marine traffic and increased access to some resources.
-Thawing permafrost will damage northern roads, buildings and infrastructure.
-Aboriginal lifestyles will face major economic and cultural adjustments.
-Increased ultraviolet radiation will affect people, animals and plants, with the current Arctic generation expected to receive about 30 per cent more UV than their mothers and fathers.
-Climate change is occurring in a context of increasing chemical pollution, land overuse and population increases.
The report is full of alarming statistics.
Bob Weber/Canoe 08.Nov.04
It makes it easy to divide people up into groups:
The ones who are happy because it means Jesus is very near.
The ones who are happy because the assholes will soon be gone, because you can't run this global-domination scam when everything's changing so chaotically and fast.
The ones who have to be fully committed to denial now - it's no longer out at the edge, you have to concentrate, lie to yourself as hard as you can.
The ones who lie a little bit, just enough to get through the day, and at the same time use the energy that's created by that tension to cast around for means of controlling the changes, even the weather; and a subgroup of that that uses the energy created by the tension to drive their dreams of leaving the planet.
The nice people - the rational ones - who understand they have to rely, not on scientific evidence and testimony, but on media outlets to bring them that evidence and testimony, and those media outlets are filthy with complicity and lies and entirely untrustworthy.
The relatively nice people who haven't quite come to terms with it - because no one can really - and are balanced, waiting, with a kind of courageous hope, that there might be something that can be done, that there might someone with an answer.
And the morally autistic who disregard this early information as too general, who never look that far ahead anyway, who never pay attention to the weather anyway, whose minds at the news turn toward real estate and how this will effect the stock market.
Also various mongrel versions, mixes of one group or another, people sliding into one state of mind and masking another, or changing as they're told to change by voices they trust.
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There's a spiritual map, a graph like this that can be drawn of the different souls and spirits and their views of what's happening, but I'm not ready or willing to talk about that here, especially as the tick suck of attention has moved directly into the immediate vicinity of my life, so that I'm no longer able to write anything without it becoming immediately public in the most profane sense, like a beggar muttering in an alley with his words suddenly broadcast to a mob. It's hard to talk about that without hedging it, it's so classically bent, but it's what I see, what I hear, what I feel.
People I wouldn't lift a finger to help, blocking the presence of people I'd die for.
