Michael Winship: The GOP’s Hazy Cloud of Ignorance
from Consortium News:
The GOPs Hazy Cloud of Ignorance
December 16, 2011
Since the ascendance of Ronald Reagan three decades ago, the Republican Party has evolved into the anti-science (or make-up-your-own-facts) party with a smug know-nothing attitude that is crippling efforts to address the looming crisis of global warming, as Michael Winship notes.
By Michael Winship
Have you heard about the great brown cloud? No, its not a new nickname for Donald Trump (his cloud is more an intergalactic nimbus of Aqua Velva and Tang), or the ominous menace in a new Stephen King novel. Its almost as nasty, though.
The Atmospheric Brown Cloud, formerly known as the Asian Brown Cloud, is a mass of air pollution hovering over northern India along the southern Himalayas and down across Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. The cloud began growing shortly after World War II, a smoggy mass of soot and sulfates from diesel emissions, wood fires and other burning stuff thats almost two miles thick.
A new study by scientists from a number of research organizations including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography finds that the clouds pollutants are making cyclones in the Arabian Sea more intense.
This is a very big deal, because, as Dean Kuipers writes in
The Los Angeles Times, After the apparent recent increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, including the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, climate watchers everywhere have speculated whether these storms were made stronger by industrial or man-made emissions. This is reportedly the first study to indicate that human activity may, in fact, affect large storms. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/16/the-gops-hazy-cloud-of-ignorance/