Disease Infected Corpses Popping Up Through the Tundra, Courtesy of Global Warming

Oh. My. Science.

In a scene that sounds like the trailer for a new Eli Roth movie, Live Science describes a headless corpse splayed out on plastic sheeting in a cellar in Siberia. They said it best:

The young bony arms - covered in fine black powder from centuries of immobility in the frozen tundra - are crossed at rest, reminiscent of a ceremonial burial. Camera flashes illuminate the scene. Several dozen scientists stand around the body, murmuring in Russian and English about the find of the day.

As global warming thaws the vast tundra of the high northern latitudes that currently houses a surprising number of possibly smallpox-infected human bodies, scientists worry that an outbreak of the long-dormant disease could be triggered. Smallpox is responsible for the deaths of nearly 300 million people in this frozen land during the 20th century alone, and is hardy enough to still be present in the corpses.

Hey Dubya, and all you others who think that global warming isn’t real… what more can it serve up to get your attention besides frozen corpses full of deadly infectious diseases? If this doesn’t do it for ya, I shudder to think what would have to occur for the light bulb to go off in your collective minds.

Link [Live Science]

Photo: Flickr user Thivierr 

Al Gore on 60 Minutes: Dick Cheney and Other Global Warming Deniers Are Flat Worlders

Or maybe it was more like:

“You’re talking about Dick Cheney. I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat,” says Gore. “That demeans them a little bit, but it’s not that far off…”

Have a look at what the former Vice Prez and current “PR Agent for The Planet” has to say about his Halliburton-hugging successor during his March 30th 60 Minutes interview on CBS.

Link [60 Minutes]

Fake Steve Jobs is Mad He Wasn’t Invited to Join Richard Branson’s Secret Planet Saving Club

 

Fake Steve Jobs just went off on a tear about Richard Branson and his not-so-secret cabal of planet saving green moguls. He thinks Richard Branson is a con man, Global Warming is probably a crock of shit (he should have lunch with Bob Lutz), and even throws in a dig at Al Gore for good measure.

It’s good, here’s a snip:

Here’s the thing. Everyone who’s ever dealt with Richard Branson realizes that he’s a complete con man, and his involvement in anything is a sure sign that it’s a crock of shit. Honestly, no matter where you are, if Branson gets on board you know there’s something profoundly wrong with the project. It’s the business equivalent of finding out that some movie has Donald Sutherland in it.

Truth is, Goldilocks does not really believe the world is about to burst into flames. What he does believe is that the global warming “crisis” is the next big way to make money off hype and fear. It’s the Y2K scam all over again. Truth is, the photo above and the ones on the linked page show a bunch of lucky rich bastards scheming to get even more rich. I’m telling you this because I’ve talked to these guys. I’ve been invited to invest in these funds. And I’ve done it. Why not? If the ducks are quacking, as they say.

Every VC in the Valley has a hard-on for greentech because it’s the first market they’ve ever seen where they can mitigate their risk by laying it off onto governments (ie taxpayers). The trick is to spread lots of hype and put pressure on governments (hence Kleiner hires Al Gore) so that governments will provide subsidies to keep these venture-funded startups alive until they can be flogged off onto the public markets. They’ll sell these stocks to dentists and they’ll use the same pitch that Toyota uses on the Prius — sure it’s overpriced, but think how good you’ll feel. These will be IPOs as a form of therapy, and the Birkenstock-wearing suckers will sing Kumbaya and talk about how capitalism is saving the world.

I’m guessing Fake Steve Jobs didn’t get an invite to Branson’s meeting. Poor fake guy.

Link [Fake Steve Jobs]

GM CEO Rick Wagoner: Vice Chairman Bob Lutz Doesn’t Speak for GM on Global Warming

We wrote about GM’s Vice Chairman Bob Lutz a last month when he made the brilliant comment that Global Warming was a “total crock of shit”. GM is getting their asses handed to them by Toyota and Honda who have been much smarter about deploying hybrid technology in their fleet.

GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner wants us all to know that Bob wasn’t speaking for General Motors- they believe that Global Warming is real and that they are working on how to best address the issue.

Fuck them. GM has been dragging their feet on improving efficiency for as long as cars have had four wheels. They’re hooked on building big ass cars that get single ass digit gas mileage. Mr. Wagoner can sputter all he wants about how GM loves the Earth and is doing their bestest to save it from their products, but we’re not being fooled. Bob Lutz made it very clear- GM is lead by asshat dinosaurs who will be buried in the tar pit that is a Globally Warmed future.

Link [Pure Green Cars]

Global Warming Doesn’t Necessarily Mean It Gets Warmer Everywhere All The Time

One of Matt Drudge’s favorite things to do with Global Warming headlines is to set them up against cold weather headlines. One headline will be about a Global Warming protest or meeting, the headline below will shout that it was super snowy somewhere, implying that Global Warming can’t possibly be real if it’s snowing hard in Iowa.

I’ve heard the same arguments thrown out about what’s turned into the snowiest winter in New England’s recorded history. “Global Warming must be BS, we just got 13 inches of snow again”.

To a simpleton that argument makes perfect sense. After all, the second word in “Global Warming” is “Warming”. Doesn’t that mean that every place on the planet should be warm now?

No, actually it doesn’t. Weather and long term cooling and warming trends are extremely complex systems. As the earth warms up due to our love affair with releasing CO2 into the air, the temperature and weather patterns in different places on the globe will fluctuate. It could be a colder winter in one country, a vastly warmer one in another. The overall temperature trend remains going up, but the local weather conditions vary from place to place.

The answer to Maine and New Hampshire’s extra snowy winter turns out to be North Europe, which is coming out of one of the warmest winters on record. Treehugger has it:

Tourism favorites like dog sleds have been “on ice” this year, euphemistically rather than literally. With temperatures breaking records across northern Europe, there is literally no ice for the popular winter tours. Mid-December to mid-January there was only hiking. Recent snows have re-employed the idle huskies, but the weatherman is not as optimistic as the sled owners: February 2008 was the second warmest on record since 1900. Other indicators demonstrate the unusual warm streak throughout the region.

The ice on the Baltic is so thin that ferries running between Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finnland have been in operation non-stop; no need for the usual pause in services between December and April. The German daily Der Spiegel references Jürgen Holfort of Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency predicting that this winter will have the least ice in the Baltic Sea since 1720.

Link [Treehugger]

Photo credit: Flickr user BigMcGuire

Idiot Manchild & GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz Thinks Global Warming is a “Total Crock of Shit.”

And as a followup to the “Coal is Great!” video, Green Daily has news that douche nozzle and GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz was heard to declare global warming a “total crock of shit.”

It warms my heart that GM is getting their asses handed to them by Honda and Toyota. Bob Lutz needs a push off the GM plane right onto his golden parachute to make room for someone who understands that the world is round and global warming is a reality that needs to be faced. GM’s position in the market will only get worse until they have people at the top who really understand the challenges of global warming and how to best position their car company to meet them.

Link [Autoblog Green] via Green Daily