Just how much evidence do you need that the World is warming before you start to take urgent and united global action? The long litany of science behind climate change has grown longer, with what has been described as the "smoking gun" having been found. Essentially it has been confirmed that the Earth's energy balance has shifted and that more is remaining in the atmosphere, exactly what climate models have predicted. Climate skeptics are criminally negligent in their Exxon financed efforts to discredit these finding. They will rot in hell for their actions - as indeed we all may, a hell on Earth.

Global warming 'proof' detected

The Earth is absorbing more energy from the Sun than it is giving back into space, according to a new study by climate scientists in the US. They base their findings on computer models of climate, and on measurements of temperature in the oceans. The group describes its results as "the smoking gun that we were looking for", removing any doubt that human activities are warming the planet.

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President Bush's energy industry backers are about to receive their tax-payer financed political payback. The U.S. House is close to approving an energy bill, which once reconciled with the Senate version, will be sent to the President to sign. During an era of war for oil, soaring temperatures, dwindling forests, peak oil and much needed price increases for energy; surely energy policy should favor renewable energy and conservation. Instead this reckless energy bill is a trough upon which the energy industry can feed - despite their already record profits. The Toxic Texan will long be villified throughout what history remains as the oil man that lead the Earth and its civilizations to destruction.

House Takes Action on Energy Measure

The House moved Wednesday toward passage of a far-ranging energy bill, with its leaders hoping that high gasoline prices would finally enable President Bush to achieve his goal of overhauling national energy policy. While the bill includes long-term measures to address price volatility and supply shortages, such as offering tax breaks to promote domestic oil production and speeding the approval of new refineries, it would do little to provide immediate relief from high gas prices.

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One of the most serious and least recognized impacts of climate change is the loss of seasonal patterns. Living in Wisconsin, an agricultural state, I am saddened that there is not more concern with climate change given the importance of knowing when to plant crops. Should seasonal patterns vary widely and lose what predictability they had, it is going to make agriculture haphazard at best. And natural ecosystems will be hammered by vegetational dieback caused by the lack of seasonal rhythms. Trees in particular will be tricked into blooming only to suffer frost damage. We are destroying the Earth's hand watch, with potentially enormous costs to natural and human systems. It hardly seems fair to trade the natural world for cheap oil.

Climate change wreaking havoc with seasons

Climate change is playing havoc with the timing of the seasons and could drastically alter the landscape, according to one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind. Frogs have begun spawning in Britain as early as October, oaks are coming into leaf three weeks earlier than they were 50 years ago and there were an unprecedented 4,000 sightings of bumblebees by the end of January this year.

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Cutting greenhouse gases are good for the environment, health, national security and do NOT harm the economy. In fact, resulting efficiencies in resource use may actually be beneficial to economic growth. Time for the Bush cabal to stop hiding behind economic impacts as a reason to eskew greenhouse gas cuts.

Study: Greenhouse gas limits affordable

Mandatory limits on all U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases would not significantly affect average economic growth rates across the country through 2025, the government's says... EIA estimated that the cost to each U.S. household of using a market-based approach to limit greenhouse gases would be $78 per year, from 2006 to 2025. That would reduce the gross domestic product in 2025 by about one-tenth of 1 percent, it said.

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The time to start taxing carbon rather than income and sales is long overdue. A carbon tax could greatly offset other tax rates, reduce energy consumption while addressing climate change, and could be designed to not fall too heavily on the low-income. It is difficult to imagine a road to global ecological sustainability that does not include carbon taxes. Even some in the energy industry agree. See ClimateArk's "Lincoln Plan" for more information.

Duke Energy CEO proposes 'carbon tax'

Duke Energy Corp. will lobby for a tax on carbon dioxide emissions that would reduce fossil fuel consumption and begin dealing with the global warming problem, the company's chairman said Thursday. "Personally, I feel the time has come to act - to take steps as a nation to reduce the carbon intensity of our economy," Paul Anderson told several hundred Charlotte business and civil leaders at a breakfast meeting. "And it's going to take all of us to do it."

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