The talking penguin’s guide to climate change
By Killian Fox, The Observer
21 April 2012 “The argument for human-driven climate change is as follows…” says the talking penguin to the man in the red jacket in the middle of the Arctic ice field. If this sounds like the beginning of a joke, hold on for the punchline. “But isn’t it true that a growing number of eminent scientists now believe climate change to be wrong?” asks the man. “It’s a tiny sliver of fringe opinion,” says the penguin, explaining how oil and gas companies are bankrolling climate-change denial while the media supply the doubters with the oxygen of publicity. “The future looks bleak,” the penguin concludes. And the punchline? Drought, hunger, disease, and the extinction of a fourth of the world’s species, if we don’t act soon.
It’s a familiar story. What’s unusual is the way it’s told. Science Tales, in which this conversation appears, deals with some of the most urgent debates in science using pictures, speech bubbles and comic-strip layouts, as well as the penguin. The man in the red jacket is the cartoon version of the author, Darryl Cunningham, who takes a view on such knotty issues as homeopathy and the MMR vaccine, sorting facts from fiction and presenting complex information in a highly accessible way. […]
The Lobbyist's Guide to Climate Change:
"While nuclear industry lobbying is widespread and aggressive, its impact is not always readily apparent. Take, for example, the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, which the Senate is expected to debate this summer. The bill—also known as S.2191, or America’s Climate Security Act—does not mention the word “nuclear” once in its 200-plus pages. Yet an aide to Senator Joe Lieberman called the measure “the most historic incentive for nuclear in the history of the United States,” according to Environment & Energy Daily.
One section of the Lieberman-Warner bill says that “25 percent of all the funds deposited into a new climate change worker training fund shall be reserved for zero and low-emitting carbon energy that has a rated capacity of at least 750 megawatts of power,” notes Tyson Slocum, the research director of Public Citizen’s energy program. “That’s a huge threshold, so that’s going to exclude wind and solar right off the bat. . . . The only thing that could possibly meet that target would be nuclear power.” Similar language in another section of the bill effectively reserves another half a trillion dollars for the nuclear industry, according to Slocum."
http://www.progressive.org/farsetta0308.html
Those who think climate change is our biggest problem on this planet have fallen for "the sting." What's the ostensible solution for production of CO2? The environmentalist fix for climate is energy sources to sustain BAU in the form of electric cars and nukes. Happy earth day.