There's a calculator on this page
http://www.americanforests.org/resources/ccc/
that will tell you how many trees you would need to plant a year to balance out your impact on the earth.
Our household produces 30.1 tons of CO2, and we'd need to plant 90.2 trees
Where the hell am I going to plant 90.2 trees? I wonder if Sarah would notice if I started planting them in the basement.... do bonsai trees count?
Thursday, February 01, 2007
We dun fuck’d up
It’s like mother earth, gaia, god, mother nature, whatever…. has been trying to tell us something. Trying desperately to warn us about something. But for the most part we ignored it. We’ve seen too many of those movies where the peoples ignore mother earth’s pleas for help until a single savior, a chosen one emerges, changes everyone minds, sets everything right and we all live happily ever after.
So we sat on our asses and waited for the chosen one. But he never came.
And then within a week, this week, three news stories come out. They make a ripple in the mainstream media, but go largely ignored.
Individually they are the same-old, same-old that we’ve become so desensitized to. But put together, or even appearing within the same week, it’s hard not to connect the dots.
High gas prices push record Exxon profit
“U.S. gasoline prices of more than $3 a gallon helped Exxon Mobil post a record $39.5 billion profit Thursday, the largest annual profit ever for a U.S. company.”
Welch: Interference in science "stunning"
U.S. Rep. Peter Welch says it was a "stunning personal experience" to hear federal scientists say they had been stymied from talking about climate change.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on which Welch serves, is holding hearings on the administration's handling of the global warming issue. The panel's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the administration appeared to want "to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming."
Welch said he had read about scientists being muzzled, but, "It's a stunning personal experience to hear directly from scientists whose life work has been compromised, who live in fear of retaliation or compromised careers if they adhere to their code of ethics as scientists."
The survey found nearly half the scientists had seen or experienced pressure to delete words like "global warming" from written material. About 40 percent said thad had seen changes to materials that changed their scientific meanings.
The White House maintains it was trying to bring balance to reports on global warming.
Climate Change Predictions Not Exaggerated, Analysis Says
In recent years actual concentrations of carbon dioxide—a greenhouse gas linked to global warming—have followed almost exactly the projections of the 2001 IPCC report.
If anything, the IPCC may have underestimated some climate threats in 2001. For example, actual temperatures were at the high end of the predicted range. And sea levels have actually risen faster than the predicted.
"There has long been a muttering, out in the blogosphere and other places, that the scientists have been exaggerating and trying to scare people so as to generate more research money," he said.
"If you wish to accuse scientists of systematic error, Rahmstorf et al show that we have been a bit conservative, and clearly not alarmist," Alley added.
The report is also expected to say these changes are mostly due, with a 90 percent certainty, to human-caused emission of greenhouse gases.
"I hope this report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action," Rejendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, told Reuters news agency last week.
Global warming to last for 1,000 years: report
Humans have already left such a deep footprint on the environment that the effects of global warming will last for the next 1,000 years, according to a draft copy of a new report.
The report says heat waves, droughts and rain storms, as well as violent typhoons and hurricanes, will become more frequent.
The report paints a startling picture of the effects of climate change and says evidence of the phenomenon is now "unequivocal."
It says human influence on the atmosphere during the 21st century alone will propel global warming for another 1,000 years, based on estimates of how long it will take nature to clean the air of gases that contribute to climate change.
So not only did we fuck things up
we did it because of money
and then we had the avarice and arrogance to try to cover it up
and we fucked it up bad enough that it will take at least 1000 years to set right
So we sat on our asses and waited for the chosen one. But he never came.
And then within a week, this week, three news stories come out. They make a ripple in the mainstream media, but go largely ignored.
Individually they are the same-old, same-old that we’ve become so desensitized to. But put together, or even appearing within the same week, it’s hard not to connect the dots.
High gas prices push record Exxon profit
“U.S. gasoline prices of more than $3 a gallon helped Exxon Mobil post a record $39.5 billion profit Thursday, the largest annual profit ever for a U.S. company.”
Welch: Interference in science "stunning"
U.S. Rep. Peter Welch says it was a "stunning personal experience" to hear federal scientists say they had been stymied from talking about climate change.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on which Welch serves, is holding hearings on the administration's handling of the global warming issue. The panel's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the administration appeared to want "to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming."
Welch said he had read about scientists being muzzled, but, "It's a stunning personal experience to hear directly from scientists whose life work has been compromised, who live in fear of retaliation or compromised careers if they adhere to their code of ethics as scientists."
The survey found nearly half the scientists had seen or experienced pressure to delete words like "global warming" from written material. About 40 percent said thad had seen changes to materials that changed their scientific meanings.
The White House maintains it was trying to bring balance to reports on global warming.
Climate Change Predictions Not Exaggerated, Analysis Says
In recent years actual concentrations of carbon dioxide—a greenhouse gas linked to global warming—have followed almost exactly the projections of the 2001 IPCC report.
If anything, the IPCC may have underestimated some climate threats in 2001. For example, actual temperatures were at the high end of the predicted range. And sea levels have actually risen faster than the predicted.
"There has long been a muttering, out in the blogosphere and other places, that the scientists have been exaggerating and trying to scare people so as to generate more research money," he said.
"If you wish to accuse scientists of systematic error, Rahmstorf et al show that we have been a bit conservative, and clearly not alarmist," Alley added.
The report is also expected to say these changes are mostly due, with a 90 percent certainty, to human-caused emission of greenhouse gases.
"I hope this report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action," Rejendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, told Reuters news agency last week.
Global warming to last for 1,000 years: report
Humans have already left such a deep footprint on the environment that the effects of global warming will last for the next 1,000 years, according to a draft copy of a new report.
The report says heat waves, droughts and rain storms, as well as violent typhoons and hurricanes, will become more frequent.
The report paints a startling picture of the effects of climate change and says evidence of the phenomenon is now "unequivocal."
It says human influence on the atmosphere during the 21st century alone will propel global warming for another 1,000 years, based on estimates of how long it will take nature to clean the air of gases that contribute to climate change.
So not only did we fuck things up
we did it because of money
and then we had the avarice and arrogance to try to cover it up
and we fucked it up bad enough that it will take at least 1000 years to set right
Sooo yesterday
I know... I know... NIN is so 2 decades ago...
But I'm going to try to post a little more often, and today I listened to this song a few times and it just stuck with me.
Only (Rishard X Remix)
Nine Inch Nails
I'm becoming less defined, as days go by
Fading away, well you might say I'm losing focus
Kind of drifting into the abstract in terms of how I see myself
Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself
Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself
Sometimes, I can see right through myself
Less concerned, about fitting into the world
Your world that is, cause it doesn't really matter anymore
(No, it doesn't really matter anymore)
No, it doesn't really matter anymore
None of this really matters anymore
Yes, I am alone, but then again I always was
As far back as I can tell, I think maybe it's because
Because you were never really real to begin with
I just made you up to hurt myself
I just made you up to hurt myself
Yeah, and I just made you up to hurt myself
I just made you up to hurt myself
Yeah, and I just made you up to hurt myself
And it worked
Yes it did!
There is no you, there is only me
There is no you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me
Well, the tiniest little dot caught my eye
And it turned out to be a scab
And I had this funny feeling
Like I just knew it's something bad
I just couldn't leave it alone
I kept picking at that scab
It was a doorway trying to seal itself shut
But I climbed through
Now I'm somewhere I am not supposed to be
And I can see things I know I really shouldn't see
And now I know why now, now I know why
Things aren't as pretty on the inside
There is no you, there is only me
There is no you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me
You know...
There was a time when I lived the angst that was NIN. It was probably all a show. But if it was, I convinced myself as well. And then we grew old.... And all that anger or whatever it was (despite all my rage I am still just....) turned into a job in middle management, student loans with no end in site, a wife and a kid, rent checks, and a yearly bonus that might get us that new ipod.
But I'm going to try to post a little more often, and today I listened to this song a few times and it just stuck with me.
Only (Rishard X Remix)
Nine Inch Nails
I'm becoming less defined, as days go by
Fading away, well you might say I'm losing focus
Kind of drifting into the abstract in terms of how I see myself
Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself
Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself
Sometimes, I can see right through myself
Less concerned, about fitting into the world
Your world that is, cause it doesn't really matter anymore
(No, it doesn't really matter anymore)
No, it doesn't really matter anymore
None of this really matters anymore
Yes, I am alone, but then again I always was
As far back as I can tell, I think maybe it's because
Because you were never really real to begin with
I just made you up to hurt myself
I just made you up to hurt myself
Yeah, and I just made you up to hurt myself
I just made you up to hurt myself
Yeah, and I just made you up to hurt myself
And it worked
Yes it did!
There is no you, there is only me
There is no you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me
Well, the tiniest little dot caught my eye
And it turned out to be a scab
And I had this funny feeling
Like I just knew it's something bad
I just couldn't leave it alone
I kept picking at that scab
It was a doorway trying to seal itself shut
But I climbed through
Now I'm somewhere I am not supposed to be
And I can see things I know I really shouldn't see
And now I know why now, now I know why
Things aren't as pretty on the inside
There is no you, there is only me
There is no you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me
You know...
There was a time when I lived the angst that was NIN. It was probably all a show. But if it was, I convinced myself as well. And then we grew old.... And all that anger or whatever it was (despite all my rage I am still just....) turned into a job in middle management, student loans with no end in site, a wife and a kid, rent checks, and a yearly bonus that might get us that new ipod.
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