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Alaskan Village Sues Over Global Warming

hightower_40 writes to mention that a small Alaskan village has sued two dozen oil, power, and coal companies, blaming them for contributing to global warming. "Sea ice traditionally protected the community, whose economy is based in part on salmon fishing plus subsistence hunting of whale, seal, walrus, and caribou. But sea ice that forms later and melts sooner because of higher temperatures has left the community unprotected from fall and winter storm waves and surges that lash coastal areas."

9 of 670 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Erm by gatzke · · Score: 4, Informative


    Or at least before we switch back to "Igloo effect" hysteria!!!

    http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm

    I was taught about climate change in middle school from a book that managed to have both cooling and warming in it, so I am always skeptical...

  2. "Alaskan Village" by ajs · · Score: 4, Informative

    The term might mislead some Slashdot readers. Please see:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Native_Claims_Settlement_Act

    which established:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Native_Regional_Corporations

    We're talking about the established tribal "village," which is a legal entity representing a group of natives for purposes of interacting with the Regional Corporations, not the traditional meaning of the word. The easiest comparison would be if you took recognized Native American tribes from the lower 48 and segmented them up into "villages" of roughly the size of a rural town.

  3. Re:Yes but... by ArcherB · · Score: 4, Informative

    Of course. I always value the scientific opinion of the founder of The Weather Channel over the consensus of hundreds of climate scientists. Would believe raw data?

    Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

    No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. That's from HERE. They provide a nifty graph to go with it HERE

    It appears to me that those who said that the SUN was causing global warming due to increased sunspot activity, that has recently subsided, were correct. And all those scientist that claimed it was solely man made were wrong.

    Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
  4. Re:Yes but... by snarfer · · Score: 4, Informative

    You are linking to a site that is funded by Exxon, in case you didn't know.

  5. Re:Yes but... by jonnythan · · Score: 4, Informative

    NASA's GISS just said that 2007 was tied with 1998 for the second-warmest year in the past century.

    Their data also shows that I think 8 months of 2007 were warmer than the corresponding months in 2006 - and all months of 2007 were at least as warm as the corresponding months in 2000.

  6. Re:They'll be happy to know the Earth is Cooling by MyNymWasTaken · · Score: 4, Informative

    This blog post seems to be a denier's primary point today.

    Here's the Hadley Center's global temperature record. Each of the past 6 years of decreasing solar activity, the waning side of solar cycle 23, have been in the hottest 8 on the 158 year record.

  7. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by snarfer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Gore's house is entirely solar and wind now, FYI.

  8. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by jejones · · Score: 4, Informative

    Gore is chairman of Generation Investment Management, the company that he buys carbon offsets from (see here for details), so he is paying himself.

  9. Re:Mistargeted law suit? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 4, Informative

    He's probably confusing it with "coffin nails", which *is* documented back to the late 1800s. Cassell's claims it's only based on a resemblance, but I don't think so. While the linking of tobacco and cancer only goes back to the 1950s and 60s, there's always been a widespread perception that it's only common sense that breathing burning smoke on a regular basis *can't* be good for your lungs. Autopsies of smoker's lungs blackened by tobacco smoke go back that far.