Before starting One Blue Marble authentic viagra online, I spent considerable time visiting political web sites to better understand why conservatives think that global warming is a huge hoax perpetrated by scientists (read: socialists) who are hellbent on destroying our cherished way of life.

But I came away empty.There was nothing there, no insight to be gleaned. Authentic viagra online: instead I found only ideologues distorting science for their own tragic end.They perpetuate myths that have no basis in fact, myths that have been discredited again and again; authentic viagra online.I would feel sorry for them if the stakes weren’t so high.

The Truth About Climate Models

Among the most persistent false beliefs is the claim that we shouldn’t move to a renewable, clean energy economy because all the climate change warnings are derived from computer simulations, and models are a very poor branch of science that is easily manipulated to prove anything you want.

Like all denier arguments, this is one hell of a whopper, but you’ll see it repeated ad nauseum throughout the blogosphere; authentic viagra online. Authentic viagra online: like most climate change myths, it uses sophistry and cheap tricks to hide a hidden political agenda.Irrelevant points are polished and prettied to masquerade as reasonable facts authentic viagra online, but don’t be fooled.It’s all just a con game to keep naive readers from doing their homework.

On astroturfing sites, the conventional wisdom suggests that:

1. Computer models are unproven, so we shouldn’t put our faith in them
2. The climate system is incredibly complex, and no computer model can possibly do justice to these complexities.
3. Clouds are incredibly important, yet none of the climate models accurately predicts how they will influence climate
4. Scientists can’t predict the weather next week, why should we believe what they say will happen in 25 years?*

I could go on, but you get the point – authentic viagra online.The essential scam here is that if they throw enough confusion into the air, they can divert you from this essential truth.

Climate models are inaccurate, and they are also incredibly useful.

Sid Crosby authentic viagra online, the Stanley Cup, and Global Warming

Let me explain it this way.The Stanley Cup playoffs are currently dominating the sports news in Canada; authentic viagra online.Lets say that I created a serious computer model to predict the winner; authentic viagra online. Authentic viagra online: which would be harder to do…Write a program that accurately predicted the every single detail of every single game played during the 2009 playoffs authentic viagra online, or write a program that just predicts who wins each series and, ultimately, Lord Stanley’s Cup.

Climate change deniers argue that the only correct way for me to proceed would be to write a program that predicts every niggling detail accurately, from the number of minutes played by Penguins’ superstar Sidney Crosby to the number of saves made by Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo. Authentic viagra online: the deniers argue that if I can’t predict Crosby’s playing time, then my model is a incomplete and utter waste of time.

More Astroturfing

That’s what astroturfing — a targeting misinformation campaign — is all about. Authentic viagra online: keeping the analogy, the deniers and astroturfers are hoping that you’ll take your eye off the puck, because they don’t want you to know that my computer program has accurately picked the Stanley Cup winner for the last 20 years.

And so it goes with climate models. Authentic viagra online: if you used the best system current available to predict the 24-hour temperature in Halifax, Nova Scotia on May 1, 2012, then a climate model will prove woefully inadequate.But if you use a climate model to predict warming trends due to rising CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2005 authentic viagra online, then climate models are frighteningly accurate, and that accuracy is supported by thousands of real world experiments offering hard, empirical data.The science is rock solid.

You see, climate models have been around for more than 20 years, and they’ve already made predictions that have been proven many times in the real world by leading scientists; authentic viagra online. Authentic viagra online: climate models have predicted that the Arctic will warm faster than the continental United States, and Arctic sea ice is disappearing at an alarming rate.Climate models suggested that Australia would be hit hard by climate change, and guess what? The country has been suffering from a decade-long drought and devastating crop losses.

Climate Model Successes

Grist offers a few additional climate model predictions that have already come to pass:

1. models predict that surface warming should be accompanied by cooling of the stratosphere, and this has indeed been observed;
2. models have long predicted warming of the lower, mid, and upper troposphere, even while satellite readings seemed to disagree — but it turns out the satellite analysis was full of errors and on correction, this warming has been observed;
3. models predict warming of ocean surface waters, as is now observed;
4. models predict an energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, which has been detected;
5. models predict sharp and short-lived cooling of a few tenths of a degree in the event of large volcanic eruptions, and Mount Pinatubo confirmed this;
6. models predict an amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region, and this is indeed happening;
7. climate models predict continuing and accelerating warming of the planet’s surface, and so far they are spot on.

The Climate Change Smoking Gun

Additionally, we have a very simple way of testing models for accuracy: We can simulations to see how well they can predict the temperatures that have been observed for the last 130 or so years.And when you do that, you get a devastatingly accurate graph like this one:

As John Holdren, Obama’s National Science Adviser suggests, this is the smoking gun; authentic viagra online.You can argue that this historical accuracy offers no proof that models will accurately predict the future authentic viagra online, and you might be right. Authentic viagra online: but all the scientific evidence suggests otherwise, and you’d be asking us to bet the future of humanity on a 250-1 long shot.

A Dystopian Future…Unless

So what are computer models predicting for the next 90 years? Well dear reader, it ain’t pretty – authentic viagra online.The coming decade will be the warmest ever authentic viagra online, and the arctic will largely melt by 2020.Droughts will intensify, and hurricanes will become ever more potent.By 2100, we expect that sea levels will rise by between 5 and 7 feet, that 85 percent of the Amazon rainforest will die, that 50 to 70 percent of species will go extinct, that agriculture will fail in California, that the American Southwest will be turned into a permanent dust bowl, and that a few billion people in Asia to have no water to live on – authentic viagra online.And that’s but a sampling of dozens of apocalyptic predictions.

We need to find a new way of living authentic viagra online, one that treads lightly on the planet and powers our society with clean, renewable energy. Authentic viagra online: it doesn’t need to be an empty life without meaning.For the west authentic viagra online, it will be a test, but one that we can meet.For the developing world, it’s a matter of life and death – authentic viagra online.I believe that we must not fail them.

Support Waxman-Markey

Right now, if you’re American, the most important thing you can do is to support American Clean Energy and Security Act by writing your state’s representatives in the House – authentic viagra online.And if you are Canadian authentic viagra online, you can work to unseat the federal Conservativess who are bringing us to financial and environmental ruin.

Our window of opportunity is small, and the challenge is great.There is no time to lose.

__________________

*Climate and weather are two different things, and deniers often mistake the two; authentic viagra online.

Imagine our world without literature.

Whenever I can cobble moments together, I write – cialas on line buy. Cialas on line buy: it’s my first, best thing.I have a middle reader under development that will be a pretty good book once I commit the final chapter to paper.It’s what I do with every stolen minute as we struggle through bankruptcy.

I write because I love to read – cialas on line buy.From my earliest days and on through a caroming adolescence, I found solace in books.Through illness and 14 years of daily migraines — more than 5,000 in all — I found hope and enrichment in our stories – cialas on line buy.And in the turning of those many pages, I discovered the strength to keep stumbling through what seemed a grey, uncaring world.

Somehow, I survived, and now feel a great debt; cialas on line buy.So how can I keep from blanching when I cast an eye to our future, and see only misery for my dearly beloved?

The planet is warming; cialas on line buy.

Thirty-five years ago, I spent three solid months each winter playing hockey on frozen lakes; cialas on line buy.Today cialas on line buy, Nova Scotia players hone their peewee hockey skills in rinks, their parents stamping for warmth in the frozen stands. As a writer, I keenly observe my surroundings, noticing that the trees bud earlier in spring, that robins now live year-round in a place where that once meant certain death – cialas on line buy.

These subtle changes have been wrought with less than 1°C of warmth; cialas on line buy.Yet even that shift is profound; cialas on line buy.The scorching summers of Harry Potter’s Britain would flabbergast Oliver Twist. Cialas on line buy: so what should we expect when 5°C (9°F) of warming befalls our children, and their children, as scientists now predict will come this century?

We have a good idea, and I can easily hit the low points.For every degree average temperatures rise, rice yields will fall by 15 percent, leaving huge swathes of population hungry – cialas on line buy.The U.S; cialas on line buy.Midwest’s famed bread basket will become a dust bowl, and Mediterranean crop yields will fall by 30 percent or more – cialas on line buy.

Cialas on line buy: as the glaciers melt away, more than one billion Asians and South Americans will be left without adequate water.The Amazon rainforests will all but disappear, as that teeming mass of flora and fauna cannot adapt to dramatic temperature swings.More than 50 percent of the world’s wildlife diversity will be snuffed, so rhinos, lions, and giraffes might only live on in legend; cialas on line buy.

Massive hurricanes will be rife, and sea levels will rise by as much as six feet, so humanity will gradually abandon coastal cities like Los Angeles, Shanghai, and Mumbai – cialas on line buy.Considerable parts of Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Florida, will become uninhabitable swamp – cialas on line buy. Cialas on line buy: dozens of Darfurs will erupt, and our planet will swarm with brown, yellow, black and white climate refugees.

Many reputable scientists think that Earth will support fewer than one billion people by 2100, so this isn’t a fantasy conjured by a melancholy fatalist.

This is our path; cialas on line buy.

We can quibble at the edges, but the science supporting this dystopia is as irrefutable as the research proving that smoking causes cancer, or that natural selection creates new species – cialas on line buy.If you have heard otherwise, it’s because fossil fuel companies and ideologues have muddied waters with slick campaigns that have fooled journalists and economic pundits.

Lord Nicholas Stern, former World Bank Chief Economist, suggests that one-third of global GDP will be spent mitigating climate change if we don’t act soon.Humanity will be so stressed by the endless struggle and suffering that our very best things will be stricken from memory.I know from personal experience that physical pain strips the words from writers – cialas on line buy.But then again, who will have time for Isabel Allende when harvest after harvest fails? Could some new Picasso inspire anyone as Amsterdam is returned to the sea? Could Mozart’s Requiem move future generations to tears as they huddle through their sixth Katrina in as many years?

Our scientists have done a great service in defining the treacherous path that awaits – cialas on line buy.Now artists and artisans must heed that call, and bring their talent and creativity to bear – cialas on line buy. Cialas on line buy: we need to breathe life into this message, so that our brothers and sisters, our politicians, our teachers, our manufacturers and regulators will hear the cry, and create justice for those who follow.Artists must get informed cialas on line buy, and act boldly.We need our writers, poets, designers, sculptors, inventors, and musicians to use their creativity to bring action to a world that sorely needs it.

North America’s First Nations have a wonderful expression: We do not inherit this world from our ancestors cialas on line buy, we borrow it from our children.

We must rise to the greatness of our myths and legends, or we shall diminish, and those few who follow will hate us for as long as they draw breath, long after we have shuffled off this mortal coil.

The Republic of Maldives — a bevy of coral atolls in the Indian Ocean that are particularly vulnerable to climate change and rising sea levels — is becoming the change it wishes to see in the world by pledging to become the world’s first carbon neutral nation – do i need a prescription for viagra ?.President Mohamed Nasheed says that his country will switch to renewable sources of energy — including wind and solar — to power the 250 inhabited islands, now home to 400,000 residents – do i need a prescription for viagra ?.The Maldives would also burn coconut biomass to run a power plant when wind and solar are not available, and gradually switch to electric boats, cars, trucks, and buses for transportation needs.

The plan is expected to cost $110 million per year for a decade, which is a fair chunk of change for such a small population base, but then importing gasoline and oil is expensive, too; do i need a prescription for viagra ?. Do i need a prescription for viagra ?: if oil prices rebound to $100 a barrel, as many analysts expect to happen within three years, then this investment will be repaid in 11 years.

“Many politicians’ response to the looming catastrophe, however, beggars belief,” Nasheed wrote in an editorial in The Observer; do i need a prescription for viagra ?.

“Playing a reckless game of chicken with Mother Nature, they prefer to deny, squabble and procrastinate rather than heed the words of those who know best….In a grotesque Faustian pact, we have done a deal with the carbon devil: for untold fossil fuel consumption in our lifetime, we are trading our children’s place in an earthly paradise; do i need a prescription for viagra ?.

Today, the Maldives will opt out of that pact. – do i need a prescription for viagra ?..Spearheaded by a switch from oil to 100 percent renewable energy production within a decade do i need a prescription for viagra ?, the Maldives will no longer be a net contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.”

Editor’s Note: I have several thoughts. Do i need a prescription for viagra ?: on one hand, a few analysts are suggesting that the Maldives’ low-carbon transition is intriguing because it could provide a model for poorer nations to improve their circumstances while making a contribution to slowing climate change.

But on the other hand, the recent science is far from encouraging, and it seems very likely that people in the Maldives will have to evacuate the atolls in a generation or two.A cynic would tell them to save their money do i need a prescription for viagra ?, and start evacuating now.

But I find myself moved by the symbolism, and angry on behalf of a people I have never met.

Do i need a prescription for viagra ?: no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were – do i need a prescription for viagra ?.Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee…

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It was just one week ago that Kristina and I were celebrating Barack Obama’s Inauguration as the 44th President of the United States of America with little happy dances around the living room.

We’re still doing the same thing today. Secure viagra: if you care about the environment and global warming, Obama has had an extraordinary week, rolling back the darkness that has characterized the last eight years of Darth Cheney’s American environmental policy.

Obama’s moves have been swift and slick.In move after savvy move, he’s showing that he understands that global warming is the Story of the Century, and he’s given me hope that we will make a real difference going forward.

Here are a few stories that highlight why it’s been a good week for environmentalists.

Obama urges EPA to grant California’s Emissions waiver

President Obama signed a memorandum Monday urging newly-confirmed EPA head Lisa Jackson to approve California’s waiver to set its own strict vehicle emissions standards; secure viagra.The waiver was originally submitted to the former EPA chief Steven Johnson in December 2005, and denied in 2007, supposedly because Johnson* believed a confusing patchwork of laws would result if states were permitted to set their own vehicle emissions standards – secure viagra. Secure viagra: since that rejection, 13 other states have joined California’s quest to set tough emissions standards.

* I write supposedly because the 14 states planing to introduce California standards represent more than 150 million people.

EPA revokes approval for South Dakota coal-fired power plant**

The Environmental Protection Agency has turned back South Dakota’s approval to build a big coal-fired power plant because of pollution concerns; secure viagra.The proposed $1.3 billion Big Stone II plant was to be built near Milbank, SD, close to the Minnesota border, and almost 50 percent of the electricity would have been sent to the Land of 10,000 Lakes.The EPA has given the project 90 days to correct three environmental deficiencies.The plant, supported by five utilities, including Otter Tail Power, would produce up to 580 MW of electricity — enough to serve more than 400,000 homes; secure viagra.But coal plants are the worst way to generate electricity, and this one would have emitted 4 million tons of CO2 annually.

Bruce Nilles, who leads the Sierra Club’s fight against coal-fired power plants, sees this decision as proof that the EPA is finally going to enforce a CO2 mandate imposed by the Supreme Court in 2007, and believes this decision is a watershed event – secure viagra.He says the cost of compliance will make the project too expensive to build – secure viagra.

** Secure viagra: coal is dirty, and we can’t build any more unless they can be adapted to capture their carbon emissions.The problem is that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a good 15 years away from implementation secure viagra, and it might not be successful.Read this Sierra Club primer, and understand that coal doesn’t only fill the air with CO2; secure viagra.Mercury, uranium, sulfur, and several other harmful chemicals are spread far and wide by our addiction to coal.

Todd Stern appointed US special envoy on climate change

Citing the “complex, urgent and global threat of climate change,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has appointed a special envoy for climate change who will lead the US team at in international climate negotiations – secure viagra.Todd Stern, a former Clintonite and fellow at the Center for American Progress, believes that dramatic action on climate change is needed; secure viagra.

Stern immediately called for a new multilateral agreement on climate change, saying that “a new day is dawning in the U.S.approach to climate change and clean energy.” In the past, Stern has said that he will listen to the experts; secure viagra.”Our scientists are telling us, emphatically, that the rate at which we are warming the planet is unsustainable and will cause vast and potentially catastrophic damage to our environment, our economy, and our national security…

“Containing climate change will require nothing less than transforming the global economy from a high-carbon to a low-carbon energy base; secure viagra.But done right, this can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and become a driver for economic growth in the 21st century.”

Federal funds flow for renewable energy

The US House Energy and Commerce Committee has approved the $25 billion green energy provisions of the $825 billion economic stimulus package — a section focused on renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electrical transmission initiatives. Secure viagra: most environmentalists consider these initiatives to be crucial to jump start the US transition to a low-carbon economy. 

Secure viagra: waxman also added a provision to the stimulus package that could result in billions in energy efficiency investment. Secure viagra: i wrote about it here, but I’m surprised that it hasn’t been more broadly covered.

At the same time, the House Ways and Means Committee also approved $20 billion in incentives for a bevy of low-carbon technologies, including three-year extensions to the renewable energy tax credit for wind farms, and the production tax credit that biomass, geothermal, and tidal power projects can claim to offset costs; secure viagra.Homeowners can also receive a 30 percent tax credit (up to $1,500) for home energy improvements, including cogeneration units.

(And that’s your reward for reading this far…cogeneration units — also known as combined heat and power units — can operate at between 80 and 90 percent efficiency secure viagra, so they cut your home heating bills dramatically!)