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Permafrost Loss Greater Threat Than Deforestation
Pierre Bezukhov writes "Emissions from thawing permafrost may contribute more to global warming than deforestation this century, according to commentary in the journal Nature. Arctic warming of 7.5 degrees Celsius (13.5 degrees Fahrenheit) this century may unlock the equivalent of 380 billion tons of carbon dioxide as soils thaw, allowing carbon to escape as CO2 and methane, University of Florida and University of Alaska biologists wrote today in Nature. Two degrees of warming would release a third of that, they said. The Arctic is an important harbinger of climate change because the United Nations calculates it's warming at almost twice the average rate for the planet. The study adds to pressure on United Nations climate treaty negotiators from more than 190 countries attending two weeks of talks in Durban, South Africa that began Nov. 28."
Doesn't this mean that the sterile wasteland that is permafrost would also come back to life again? I thought more life, especially plant life, was a good thing?
No. This is EVIL CAPITALIST OIL COMPANY plant life, which is bad.
Of course the whole thing is a load of bollocks, and people have far more important things to worry about right now than what some lefties claim might happen in a hundred years. The 'Global Warming' scam is dead.
Oh piss off about Germany and its supposed superiority over America.
1) Germany is about the size of Montana, just one of 50 American states, into which 80 million people are crammed. America's national parks (not including numerous state parks), alone, completely undeveloped, are nearly the size of Germany. So, right off the wheel, in terms of sheer size, and getting around, America is a much more rural country than Germany is.
2) Germany's standard of living is based on an export driven economy that essentially relies on the fact that first the mark and now the euro are way overvalued relative to the us dollar, and that the USA picks up the tab for ensuring that Germany even has access to oil by virtue of American military power in the persian gulf.
3) Germany has a declining population - if Germany was so great, why do they have a forecast net population decline? By contrast, the USA has a population that is growing the fastest out of any of the NATO nations.
4) German corporations have a -lower- tax rate than American ones do. Oops, did I say that? Also, German laws are absolutely brutal for debt collection compared to American ones. If you, in America, blow off paying a loan bank, you get a bunch of angry letters and pissy phone calls and for the most part that's really all about they can do to you. In Germany, they can just come and start taking your shit away.
5) The German educational system essentially creates a class system by picking kids early on to go to university. In America, anyone whose willing to take out a student loan and do the work can find some place to get a degree, and all kids are educated not to be tradesman, but to be college bound.
6) I'll take Kentucky bourbon over German beer, American NFL football and MLB baseball over stupid soccer.
7) Speaking of taxed to the hilt, Germans are actually more in debt per capita than Americans are, and the American financial picture improves rather dramatically when the Bush tax cuts expire, and the budget sequesters kick in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt
8) Germans talk of a United Europe but bitch because the Greeks can't get their shit together. In America, we talk about a United States, and most Americans are not even aware of how federal dollars get redistributed all over the country for rural and urban development. (in essence, southerners wishing for reducing federal spending need to be periodically reminded that most federal spending is actually on them...)
9) Americans have way better food. Want cheap industrial food, got that. Want fresh cuisine representative of every nation on the planet? Got that too.
And then, best of all, there's this:
http://www.insideline.com/cadillac/cts-v/2009/2009-cadillac-cts-v-sets-nurburgring-record.html
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