Saturday, August 04, 2012

Blah, blah, blah: NY Times prints a professor of sociology's opinion that carbon dioxide is causing "strange weather that’s become our new norm"

Is It Hot Enough for Ya? - NYTimes.com
CLIMATE change is hardly a seasonal issue, but summer is the only time of year when Americans and the news media regularly fix their attention on the everyday heat emergency that’s already altering life on our planet. Indeed, this summer’s record-shattering weather across the United States has created a heightened level of interest in and concern about the consequences of climate change.

For the moment, we have an opportunity to make fundamental changes to the way our country deals with the environment, changes that would lock in public acceptance of climate change. But we have to act quickly — not only because the crisis is urgent, but because one good blizzard could change a lot of minds.
...
The Midwest is becoming a Dust Bowl, the Southwest and Rocky Mountains a tinder box. Lakes and rivers across the South are drying up. And a series of brutal heat waves, severe storms and prolonged power failures has punished residents of the Northeast, generating widespread concern that the region’s infrastructure is woefully unprepared for the strange weather that’s become our new norm....

Eric Klinenberg is a professor of sociology at New York University

No comments: