A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never!

Excellent op-ed by Bill McKibben:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-link-between-climate-change-and-joplin-tornadoes-never/2011/05/23/AFrVC49G_story.html

are they all blamed on climate change?
Probably not, but now we can charge a carbon tax because of climate change hysteria.............just what we need...another tax!!

another whining denier. The stupid is palpable around here sometimes. No single weather event can be conclusively linked to climate change but the fact that it's happening is beyond scientific reproach and no amount of fucking head in the sand idiocy is going to change that.

your eyes over it without engaging your brain. Because your mind is clearly hermetically sealed shut.

There is none so blind as he who WILL NOT see.

And as usual, sports fans, we have here someone who cares only about MONEY instead of man's destruction of civilization and vast ecosystems. Wow. Whining about "taxes" as hundreds and thousands die and are left destitute.

The fact of the matter is that coal, oil and natural gas ALL emit CO2 and the physics beyond that simple fact are immutable. We can argue about degree or feedback loops or other factors until the world does actually end, but what we can no longer deny is that the ONE thing we can control is the one thing that our political hacks posing as 'leaders' fail to acknowledge - using fossil fuels without paying for their FULL cost has stifled innovation, killed jobs, retarded the development of necessary 21st century industries and essentially failed everyone not currently in an executive suite at an oil company.

The FULL cost includes all externalities of fossil fuels - the cost of clean-up for spills and environmental disasters; the cost of subsidies to the very same companies bleeding us dry to the tune of record PROFITS;the cost of wars and military spending that is used to secure access to the petroleum in parts of the world that have no intention of handing it over freely (or at any price in some cases). And YES that DOES mean we need more taxes - on manufacturing, refining, mining, distributing and consuming energy from these sources. It is the only method to encourage exploration and development of alternatives quickly - as long as artificially cheaper (though in reality it is costing us PLENTY ... such as the idea that austerity measures are the ONLY solution to our debt issues and that taxes are always evil and so on); and easier target exists for those who do bring the energy to market, change is not coming fast enough.

Once the full price tag is applied, and the artificial profit margins are trimmed to reality, then and only then will the actual market forces go to work on leveling the field and getting us off fossils and onto renewables in anything close to a timely fashion.