We Won't Sink with Our Ice (Inuits Suing US Over Global Warming)

[selmo7]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6908719/site/newsweek/

Feb. 3 - The Inuit living in some of the world’s iciest regions are feeling the effects of global warming. The ice caps where they hunt are thawing earlier every year; polar bears are hunting in unfamiliar places; non-indigenous species are being seen in the Arctic and last summer local inhabitants saw their first wasp on Canada’s Baffin Island. None of this is news to global-climate experts, who are meeting this week in Exeter, England, to discuss the scope and rate of climate change. Indeed, the English conference comes on the heels of a warning released last week by the International Climate Change Task Force that politicians have less than a decade to prevent worldwide disasters caused by global warming.

But for the 155,000 Inuit spread across Russia, Canada, Greenland and Alaska, the issue has taken on a greater urgency. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), says that the Inuit livelihood is being affected by the changes--and that the United States is at least partly to blame. Watt-Cloutier and her group are planning to file a petition in the next few weeks with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, claiming that their human rights have been have been endangered due to excessive U.S. gas emissions. In a phone interview from her home in Iqaluit in northern Canada, Watt-Cloutier spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Ginanne Brownell about the group’s plans and the Inuit experience of climate change.

[Octafish]

1. Don't let this thread sink.

The Inuit are good people, the kind the Bushes of the world target for exploitation.

Thanks to Greed & War, Inc., the habitat and way of life will soon be gone:


Climate Change and Arctic Sea Ice

Introduction

The Arctic ice pack is melting. A large body of recent scientific evidence now verifies what was once science fiction speculation set in an indefinite future.

BIG SNIP...

Key factors

Two key factors appear to be influencing these changes in ice distribution. The first factor is an intense warming of more than 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade that has occurred over the past thirty years over much of the landmasses of Siberia, Alaska and Western Canada, combined with a weaker cooling trend in western Greenland and the Labrador Sea.<6>

The second factor is a major change in Arctic air circulation patterns. Average sea level pressure has dropped over the central Arctic Ocean,<7> and there has been an increase in high latitude storms.<8> As a result of these changes, relatively warm spring and summer air masses from much of the Arctic coast are able to penetrate far over the Arctic Ocean, melting some sea ice and driving much of the remainder away from the shore and towards the central ice pack.

Lengthening melt season

One of the major results of these changes has been a lengthening warm season during which sea ice can melt. The melt season has varied between 55 and 75 days between 1979 and 1996, and has lengthened at a rate of 5.3 days (8 percent) per decade during that time.<9> Once areas of open water, called "leads", have opened in the ice, these darker areas of ocean (technically called areas of lower "albedo") reflect less sunlight, warming up and thus melting still more ice.

CONTINUED...

http://archive.greenpeace.org/climate/arctic99/reports/seaice3.html

[xchrom]

2. i hope that it's the science

that wingers rely on that really goes on trial.
having that dragon slain would go a long way.

[Octafish]

4. HYL&C: The Faith-based Pretzelduncy needs to be on trial, too.

Hear you loud and clear. So does Bill Moyers:

There is no tomorrow

Bill Moyers
January 30, 2005

One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index.

That's right -- the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.

CONTINUED RATIONALITY...

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5211218.html

You probably saw this, xchrom. If you didn't, you know it.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. EVERYBODY READ THIS ARTICLE

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you THE ENEMY. Yes, we are fighting against people bent on DELIBERATELY DESTROYING THE WORLD.

[Octafish]

7. Hi, Dirtbag! Here's another URL to the article, w/o registration...

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_15406.shtml

BTW: Yours is one of the all-time great DU nom de plumes.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. ???? I didn't need registration for the MSNBC link.

And blocking cookies, even. :shrug:

Thanks for the additional link, though. But the unwashed masses will think it more credible of coming from a "established" source like MSNBC. I'm e-mailing it like hell as we speak.

[callous taoboy]

12. It's also at Mr. Will Pitt's page:

http://www.truthout.org/

[Sivafae]

11. Here's another link to that story

I had to register to read the whole thing.
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/20666/

As much as I am fully aware of what he is stating is true, it still blows my freakin mind that people think like this. So much so, that I am left feeling as if I don't know what to do. I mean do we wait and see, and when God doesn't come, we live in a mess?

[gorbal]

22. There are some crazy people, but some are just hypnotized

You see it on that "Red State Road Trip" on truthout, most of them are just nice normal people who need some friendly fingers to snap them out of their trance.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. But NOOOOOOO, global warming is a LIBRUL LIE!!!!!

</freeper>

[joefree1]

6. Glub, glub, glub

America's popularity around the world sinks even further.


Download the free PDF letter size art here:
http://www.ediablo.com

[Lautremont]

8. This is where it's happening, and nobody listens to these people

It's obscene. Every time I read about shit like that Michael Crichton book I get steamed. That guy and the rest of the freeperidiots should go to Baffin Island and see how they like being stung by wasps above the Arctic Circle.

[GoSolar]

10. Kick

[donsu]

13. praise to the Inuits for fighting back

time is running out for us to heal the environment.

fight back! stop the bushgang.

[KingoftheJungle]

14. A huge lawsuit would be frickin' AWESOME! You go eskimos!

[AllyCat]

15. Go get 'em Inuits!

I hope they win. Who's taking money for them? NRDC? That would just be too classic if they won, but it's probably iffy at best.

[alfredo]

16. bush wants the ice caps to melt. He wants open water for oil

tankers. He also sees complete environmental disaster as a way to bring Christ back.

See the recent Bill Moyers article.

[DemBones DemBones]

24. Can we get a hint on where to see the Moyers article?

Pretty please? ;-)

[alfredo]

25. You said the magic word

here it is:

http://www.alternet.org/story/20666

[DemBones DemBones]

26. And I'll say the other one -- THANKS!!! nt

[alfredo]

29. Yer welcomed and as your reward

a picture of the the Ukraine's new Prime Minister.



If that is not your piece of cake, then one must fall back on a sure winner



Of course if you are totally twisted:

[tubbacheez]

17. Give 'em hell, Inuits. n/t

[MamaBear]

18. Kick n/t

[wildflower]

19. Kick for the Inuit. n/t

[SpiralHawk]

20. Bush is responsible

BushCo must be held to blame.

They are responsible,

[Generator]

21. Well I hope they sock it to them!

I imagine they are the true canaries on the global warming front.It seems winter here on the west coast is shorter and shorter. Now it's Daffodils at the end of February instead of March. It's those things I notice. But my dinner doesn't depend on it.

[struggle4progress]

23. kick kick kick

[Psephos]

27. Science and politics are a dangerous brew

One derives its truths from repeatable experiments. The other takes its truths from received wisdom.

We mix them at our peril.

[whatelseisnew]

28. .

[HuckleB]

30. It's what they must do.

And it may not end up being just for themselves, in the end.