Bush and the US Media ignore Nature?s Warnings
Washington, Sep 27 (Prensa Latina) Ignoring global warming -- and so any preparations to safeguard the world for our children and grandchildren -- is but another form of global terrorism, comments Tom Engelhardt, editor of Tomdispatch.com on Monday.
The fellow at The Nation Institute says it"s a way of loading and locking another kind of weapon of mass destruction.
Bizarre and strange have been used to describe Florida"s weather disasters, but the media has blamed Mother Nature for it, not once linking recent meteorological phenomena to global warming.
According to Engelhardt, for the first time in history, four hurricanes – Charley, Frances, Ivan (the Terrible), and now Jeanne -- have smacked into Florida"s long coastline one after another in a single hurricane season (not yet over).
Forget that in March Brazil experienced the South Atlantic"s first hurricane ever -- Brazilian meteorologists didn"t even know what to name it; or that the Atlantic coast of Canada got whacked by Hurricane Juan, "the storm of the century," late last year (and the Canadian government suspects a link to global warming); or that the United States has already experienced a record number of tornados in 2004; or that Japan has had the worst season of typhoons in memory; or that extreme weather events have increased in recent years across the planet, including massive flooding in Europe, Bangladesh, and China, and a deathly summer heat wave that struck Europe in 2003.
Forget the rising sea levels and the increased melt-off toward the poles. Forget that the Bush administration"s closest ally, Tony Blair of Britain, made a major speech, widely ignored in the American press, labeling global warming a danger beyond compare.
In contrast, Engelhardt highlights that the head of at least one country in the path of Hurricane Ivan -- Fidel Castro -- was ready to warn his people about global warming and hurricanes.
It"s often said that, in tossing the Kyoto Agreement out the Ozone hole, relaxing fuel-emission standards, burying or altering governmental global-warming research and the like, the Bush administration, with an Ivan-the-Terrible-style environmental record, has stuck its head in the proverbial sand (probably Tar sands at that).
ef/
Informant: Walter Lippmann
The fellow at The Nation Institute says it"s a way of loading and locking another kind of weapon of mass destruction.
Bizarre and strange have been used to describe Florida"s weather disasters, but the media has blamed Mother Nature for it, not once linking recent meteorological phenomena to global warming.
According to Engelhardt, for the first time in history, four hurricanes – Charley, Frances, Ivan (the Terrible), and now Jeanne -- have smacked into Florida"s long coastline one after another in a single hurricane season (not yet over).
Forget that in March Brazil experienced the South Atlantic"s first hurricane ever -- Brazilian meteorologists didn"t even know what to name it; or that the Atlantic coast of Canada got whacked by Hurricane Juan, "the storm of the century," late last year (and the Canadian government suspects a link to global warming); or that the United States has already experienced a record number of tornados in 2004; or that Japan has had the worst season of typhoons in memory; or that extreme weather events have increased in recent years across the planet, including massive flooding in Europe, Bangladesh, and China, and a deathly summer heat wave that struck Europe in 2003.
Forget the rising sea levels and the increased melt-off toward the poles. Forget that the Bush administration"s closest ally, Tony Blair of Britain, made a major speech, widely ignored in the American press, labeling global warming a danger beyond compare.
In contrast, Engelhardt highlights that the head of at least one country in the path of Hurricane Ivan -- Fidel Castro -- was ready to warn his people about global warming and hurricanes.
It"s often said that, in tossing the Kyoto Agreement out the Ozone hole, relaxing fuel-emission standards, burying or altering governmental global-warming research and the like, the Bush administration, with an Ivan-the-Terrible-style environmental record, has stuck its head in the proverbial sand (probably Tar sands at that).
ef/
Informant: Walter Lippmann
Starmail - 28. Sep, 22:47
