Haiku 091609

summer rain --
some avoid stepping
on the sun

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Recently, we read the following:

San Francisco Chronicle: “Abrupt reversal detected in Arctic cooling trend” by David Perlman

"The Arctic climate has been warmer over the past decade than during any 10-year period in 2,000 years, according to a study by an international research team that adds powerful new evidence that human-generated greenhouse gases have speeded the pace of the planet's recent warming.

"The report from an international team of climate scientists concludes that climate change in the Arctic has accelerated since the Industrial Revolution, abruptly reversing a long-term worldwide cooling trend.

" 'The study provides a clear example of how increased greenhouse gases are now changing our climate,' said Caspar Ammann of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., a co-author of the report published Thursday in the journal Science…

"Researchers at other institutions, seeking to look for patterns of climate change even further back in time, used astronomical records to study the well-known wobble of the globe as it spins on its axis. They found that the Northern Hemisphere has long been moving away from the sun's warmth. During the summer solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is now a million kilometers - about 621,000 miles - farther away from the sun than it was 2,000 years ago, according to the scientist's computer models.

"The result was a global period of relative cold that would have continued, the scientists found. But about 1850, at the beginning of the Industrial Age, the planet's climate began overcoming the cooling trend, and the Arctic climate has warmed decade by decade ever since as greenhouse gas emissions have increased, the scientists say…"

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And we thought:

… Sadly, since Katie Couric confirmed she doesn’t read at all, we expect that Sarah Palin will be missing another article that might have helped her revisit her position on climate change. Palin will remain thinking that his former running-mate, John McCain, and the 141 Kyoto Protocol country-signatories are wrong about global warming and man’s hand in it…

Haiku 083109

two burps
as he nears the dock
a bull frog


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Recently, we read the following:

The Daily Telegraph: “Barack Obama critics take aim at carbon reforms after health reform success” by Alex Spillius

“Inspired by the success of protests against health care reform, the critics began their fight against the carbon scheme with a rally in Houston, Texas...

“A coalition of 17 business and conservative groups, backed by dozens of local organisations, will stage further events in 19 other states over the next three weeks and has told its millions of members to bombard their representatives in Washington with calls and emails…

“Like the agitators against the president's plans for health reform, the alliance, known as Energy Citizens, plans to influence congressmen and senators visiting their districts and states during the August break….

“Democratic leaders in the Senate have set a deadline of the end of September to finalise a cap-and-trade bill, after the House of Representatives narrowly passed its own version earlier in the summer…

“Mr Obama claims the bill will slow global warming and reduce dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels but critics have said it would however raise energy costs and lead to substantial job losses….

“Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a pressure group involved in opposing Mr Obama on both fronts, said: ‘Cap and trade has just come on top of everything else – the massive stimulus, the $1 trillion budget, health care.’

" ‘We are just people who don't want the government to get bigger, too expensive and too intrusive, a government that will tell you what health care you can have at what price and what energy you can have at what price. It's a standard Left-Right choice.’ "

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And we thought:

… Is Big Government really the immediate problem? It appears to us – from stark events over the last two years -- that the immediate problem is really Big Business. These are the big financial services companies like AIG, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch. The big health insurance companies like UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, and Wellpoint. The supermajor oil and energy companies like ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, and Royal Dutch Shell.

Big Business, coddled by the Bush administration during the last 8 years, is the albatross on the necks of the American people. It is behind the economic woes that hit the majority of the American people particularly hard over the waning years of the Bush regime.

Apparently, the new administration is now trying to address these economic hardships by way of its proposed reforms in Congress, designed to benefit the American people in the long term. But, true to form, Big Business is the bull frog precisely trying to scare the American people away from these proposed changes...