by Glynn Wilson

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., April 13 – What will it take to make the American people wake up and actually do something to reverse climate change due to global warming caused by the excessive burning of fossil fuels for energy?

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Sheryl Crow rocks a UAB crowd and preaches on the dangers of global warming.

It would be like preaching to the choir to tell you all, dear journal readers, what it is going to take. If you’ve found this Website and follow it regularly, you already know that we’ve written about it and posted headlines ad nauseam on the subject. As I told a few people at the “Stop Global Warming” virtual tour event Friday night at UAB, I’ve been writing about the issue since the 1970s.

But since no other media outlet in Alabama is doing anything on the subject, it might be worth telling a story about someone who is rich and famous and in the music business, since the American Idol craze has swept Birmingham into a music frenzy in recent years.

The problem is, the people of the Birmingham area are more likely to hear about the issue from a religious nut weatherman such as James Spann of ABC 33/40, who somehow still has his job after making national news recently with his claim that there is no such thing as global warming. He still claims that global warming has nothing to do with creating more violent storms like Hurricane Katrina.

Remember the “it’s all cyclical argument?”

There’s only one fact Mr. Spann needs to know to change his mind, and it’s right there in his weather data. The warmer the ocean water in the path of a hurricane, the stronger the storm will become before making landfall. When Katrina hit the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi on the morning of August 29, 2005, temperature readings showed the warmest water in the Gulf of Mexico ever recorded during a hurricane. So Katrina’s eye wound tighter and faster as it approached land, making it into what real weather experts call “a perfect storm.”

If she had not veered east going up the Mississippi River on that fateful morning, there may have been nothing at all left of New Orleans. Instead, Katrina’s main wrath wiped out the less populated Mississippi coast and simply broke the levees protecting New Orleans, creating the flood that will go down in history. New Orleans will never fully recover from that trauma, no matter what the politicians say.

Will other American cities have to be destroyed before people wake up?

Someone in the audience asked Sheryl Crow how she first became aware of and involved in environmental issues.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Sheryl Crow singin’ sweet at UAB

If you’ve followed her life and career at all, you may know that she moved from St. Louis to LA in the late 1980s, and jump started her music career with the Tuesday Night Music Club, where she met Don Henley, the drummer, singer-songwriter for The Eagles.

In 1990 Henley founded the Walden Woods Project to help protect Walden Pond from development. The Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods was started in 1998 to provide for research and education on arguably America’s first naturalist, environmental writer, Henry David Thoreau.

Ms. Crow said Henley had a major influence on her and she’s been involved ever since.

So earlier this year, Crow hooked up with LA producer Laurie David, now famous as the producer of Al Gore’s Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and went on the road drawing crowds at universities across the country to try to jump start the movement against global warming among college students.

“This is the most important movement of our time,” Ms. Crow said on a break from the music to have a dialogue with the crowd of about 500 at the Bartow Arena.

While Ms. Crow helps draw a crowd with her music and celebrity, there is a concrete message there about what people can do to make a difference, from using energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs to driving hybrid cars – and pressuring the university administration to get onboard the green campaign.

In her presentation to the crowd, Laurie David indicated the University of Alabama at Birmingham was chosen as a stop on the tour because it scores high on the use of carbon and because it is the largest employer in Alabama with 35,000 faculty, staff and students.

“Imagine what you could accomplish here,” Ms. David said. “We are asking people to make a change. This is going to impact everyone. The science is all there. This is a problem that is happening now.”

“And this is not ‘belief.’ It is a fact,” Ms. David said in response to a question about the contradictory information being put out by weathermen like James Spann and other mainstream media outlets, who report more on the controversial nature of the subject than the facts about it.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Sheryl Crow “getting down” on the accordian at UAB

Like I always say, “It’s philosophy 101. There are matters of opinion. And matters of fact.”

Too bad public opinion in America these days is driven more by beliefs than facts. Maybe some people will believe Sheryl Crow even if they don’t believe Al Gore or a major consensus of scientists.

Ms. Crow played acoustic guitar, bass and accordion and sang five songs in all, including her own hits, “A Change Will Do You Good,” “Every Day Is a Winding Road” and “Soak Up the Sun.” She also sang the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out.”

Ms. Crow said she will have a new album out in the fall with one song about global warming.

“It’s a sweet little rockin’ global warming song,” she said.

Maybe her story and appearance can inspire others to get involved, according to several members of the Black Warrior Riverkeepers environmental group, one of the best non-profit groups operating in Alabama. The group was instrumental in getting the Global Warming Tour to Birmingham – and signing up more than 5,000 people to get involved in the tour, the most of any local organization in the country, according to Black Warrior Riverkeeper founder David Whiteside.

To get involved, head on over to the StopGlobalWarming.Org Tour Website and sign up. Hey, it’s your world too. Don’t just sit there. Do something…

Academy Award winner and former Vice President Al Gore blasted the mainstream media’s coverage of global warming and climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels at a media ethics discussion on Tuesday.

He said there are many reasons why world leaders aren’t doing more about global warming, “but one of the principal reasons in my view is more than half of the mainstream media have rejected the scientific consensus implicitly.

“They have failed to report that it is the consensus and instead have chosen balance as bias,” he said. “I don’t think that any of the editors or reporters responsible for one of these stories saying, ‘It may be real, it may not be real,’ is unethical. But I think they made the wrong choice, and I think the consequences are severe.”

Read the fuill story from the Tennessean here.

You Can Too!

It may seem early, but the race for President of the United States has already begun. One of the most important issues facing voters in 2008 will be how candidates stand on global warming and climate change.

Recognizing this, the League of Conservation Voters is making a push to get candidates to deal with the issue NOW. As a start, the group is trying to get 100,000 people to sign a petition to demand that all presidential candidates from all parties take a stand on global warming.

We think with a little help from the blogosphere and concerned citizens like you, we can do better than that. Why not 1 million signatures? Or better yet, 10 million?

Here’s is a sample letter the group has on its Website.

Dear Candidate for U.S. President,

The debate is over. The National Academy of Sciences and thousands of scientists worldwide agree that the planet is warming and that human dependence on fossil fuels – such as coal and oil – is the primary cause. The problem is so urgent that the next 10 years will likely decide the outcome. There is still time to rise to the challenge, but America needs the leadership to do so.

Solving global warming will place the U.S. at the forefront of developing and deploying the clean energy technologies that will dominate the 21st century. When we solve global warming, we will have established a more secure, prosperous and vibrant America.

Nothing short of our children’s future is at stake.

As you campaign for your party’s presidential nomination, we ask that solving global warming be a central message and a top priority.

To sign the petition, go to the group’s Website and fill out the form NOW!

Now that the Great Backyard Birdcount is over, it’s time to move on to other issues of concern in the news.

For starters, there’s a story moving on the wires from this morning that the European Union has agreed that the 27-nation bloc should begin implementing measures to cut carbon dioxide emissions 20 percent by the year 2020. The EU statement said the group would support a steeper 30 percent target from 1990 levels if other industrialized nations would match European efforts to curb global warming.

But EU environment ministers must still find a way to agree on how they would reach their individual 20 percent targets, according to the Associated Press. One possibility is a compromise aimed at sharing the burden so that some nations would not be required to meet binding targets.

Also, the full statement on global climate change by the American Association on the Advancement of Science is now available on the group’s Website.

Approved by the board on Dec. 9 and released Monday, the statement says, in part:

“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society. Accumulating data from across the globe reveal a wide array of effects: rapidly melting glaciers, destabilization of major ice sheets, increases in extreme weather, rising sea level, shifts in species ranges, and more. The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now.”

Now we will see how the Bush administration responds, as well as local weatherman James Spann and the Birmingham Baptist Association.

In the interest of passing on the full science information on an issue that has been inevitably politicized, the rest of the full statement is published below.
Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: Here are some excerpts from an interesting unsigned editorial in the Free-Lance Star from Federicksburg.com, especially in light of our recent response to E.O. Wilson and Letter to the Church.

Should caring for the environment be a major priority for people of faith? Only a few years ago, I would have blithely answered this question “No.” Care for the natural world was not a priority of our governmental affairs work. Nor was it a priority in my personal and family life.

What changed? I changed.

I realized I was violating the biblical commands “to serve and to protect” creation (Genesis 2:15). The Hebrew words to serve, avad, and to protect, shamar, mean we must be care-takers, not just takers.

I had to turn about and go in another direction. That’s what the biblical word for repentance means.

***
Dr. E.O. Wilson, author of the recent book “Creation,” says: “If current deterioration of the environment by human activity continues unabated, half of Earth’s surviving species, plants, and animals will be extinguished or critically endangered by the end of the century. One quarter, it’s been estimated, could leave us in the next 50 years due to climate change alone.”
Read the rest of this entry »

The world’s largest scientific society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, joined the public debate on global climate change Sunday at its annual meeting, issuing a statement of consensus that said, in part, “The evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now and is a growing threat to society.”

The society issued the statement just weeks after the International Panel on Climate Change issued its most recent report on human-induced global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels.

“Scientists are observing the rapid melting of glaciers, destabilization of major ice sheets, rising sea levels, shifts in species ranges and increased frequency of weather extremes,” said John P. Holdren, director of the Woods Hole Research Center and AAAS president, according to the Associated Press, other news sources and the press release.

Concern focuses on carbon dioxide and other gases produced by burning fossil fuels and other processes, which accumulate in the atmosphere and trap heat from the sun, much like a greenhouse, warming the climate.

“The longer we wait to tackle climate change, the harder and more expensive the task will be,” the group said.

Holdren noted that some of the most dramatic changes are occurring in the far North where warming has occurred more rapidly than in other areas. Retreating sea ice and rising sea level are driving some natives from their villages, the group said.

On Feb. 2 the Intergovernmental Panel in Climate Change reported that global warming is so severe that it will “continue for centuries,” leading to a far different planet in 100 years.

The panel, established by the United Nations, concluded that global warming is “very likely” caused by man, meaning more than 90 percent certain.

If nothing is done to change current emissions patterns of greenhouse gases, global temperature could increase as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, the report said.

AAAS was founded in 1848. It reports that it serves 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, reaching 10 million individuals.

Find out more at the group’s Website: American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report published today, according to the UK Guardian newspaper.

Scientists Offered Cash to Dispute Climate Study

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

The AEI has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI’s board of trustees.

The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science … (more below) and even more …

So much for Alabama weatherman James Spann’s rant about scientists making money to say there IS “man-made” global warming…

ExxonMobil announced Thursday it made $39.5 billion in profits last year, breaking its own world record for 2005 of $36.1 billion – the most profits ever made by a company in a single year.

Exxon Mobil Posts Record Annual Profit

Unfortunately, according to the Exxpose Exxon Coalition, CEO Rex Tillerson is poised to pump most of that money right back into polluting oil and gas projects, lobbying against solutions to global warming, and funding front groups and junk science.

If ExxonMobil invested less than one month of its 2006 profits in renewable energy like wind, solar, or biomass, it would have more than doubled all federal spending last year on renewable energy, fuel efficiency and alternative fuels combined ($1.8 billion).

Unlike its competitors, ExxonMobil is avidly opposed to renewable energy. In Davos last week, CEO Rex Tillerson told the business crowd that “even if renewable energy production grows at double digit rates, it will remain less than 2 percent of world energy supplies.” But current calculations by the Renewable Energy Policy Network calculate that renewable energy already supplies roughly 4 percent of world power.

DAVOS Exxon Mobil CEO sees 2030 world energy consumption up 50 pct

That ExxonMobil’s predictions on renewable energy are notoriously off-base is not surprising given that up until just recently ExxonMobil has denied that global warming is even a serious problem. Now, after being battered for a year and a half by hundreds of thousands of Exxpose Exxon activists and coalition members, ExxonMobil has begun to shift its rhetoric – not its policies, but its rhetoric.

The good news is that Exxon finally admitted recently that somebody should do something about global warming. The bad news is they refuse to recognize that they are that somebody…
Read the rest of this entry »