Tag: Global Warming

As the planet heats up, forests die. Pine beetles--formerly killed during harsh winters, thrive, turning much of Colorado a dirty brown. As forest die, they trap less carbon dioxide, causing the earth to get warmer still.

Natural gas may be a cleaner-burning energy source than coal, but making the switch isn’t likely to slow global warming any time soon, according to a new study in the journal Climatic Change.

Even before tonight’s jobs speech, conservation groups in Colorado and across the Rocky Mountain West say it’s clear President Barack Obama has chosen polluting industry jobs over other employment sectors, demoralizing the environmental base ahead of the 2012 campaign.

Despite the recent round of wet weather in Colorado – including some snow above 12,000 feet – Colorado politicians and fire officials warned fall can be one of the most active seasons for wildfires.

No wonder global warming has Al Gore so hot under the collar. His harangue against climate change deniers induced a frenzy of conservative chest-pounding last week wherein Fox News and the usual suspects swore his scatological sermon must be a symptom of dementia. They went on to spew the same misleading memes the ex-vice president decried in Aspen.

"They pay pseudo-scientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: 'This climate thing, it's nonsense,'" an impassioned Al Gore told attendees at the Aspen Institute Thursday. "Bullshit! 'It may be sun spots.' Bullshit! 'It's not getting warmer.' Bullshit!”

Before going off to the Council on Foreign Relations to give a speech on foreign policy, former Minnesota governor and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning. Asked about his stance on cap and trade, he acknowledged that he had changed his mind. He added, “I denounced it for a variety of reasons, one of which is the science is bad and it’s in great dispute,” repeating once more that there is a “scientific dispute” about the issue of climate change.

There’s more bad news for water watchers in the Rocky Mountain West, where record snowpack from last winter has led to a dangerous runoff in some places, including Colorado’s Western Slope. The bad news is this season is apparently a statistical blip in a 30-year historical decline in Rocky Mountain snowpack, which provide between 60 and 80 percent of the water supply for the 70 million people living in the western United States.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the Mormon former governor of Massachusetts who led the nation in government-based health reform, is already no favorite with the Tea Party-wing of the Republican electorate. He has now cemented that unpopularity by saying in public what he said in his book last year: that he stands behind the vast majority of the world's climate scientists who believe that the planet is warming and that that's a bad thing and that humans are no small part of the problem-- not that he's going to do anything about it, policy-wise.

Science is still unclear how much humans contribute to global climate change, but the consensus seems to be “it’s a modest amount,” former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Friday in an interview with WHO-AM’s Jan Mickelson.