With virtually the entire U.S. suffering under a massive heat wave (Nebraska is seeing heat index readings of 117 degrees F.), drought-stricken Texas shipping its cattle out of state to graze, and Phoenix, Arizona just having experienced a 5,000-foot-high and 100-mile-wide dust storm the likes of which hasn't been seen since the Dust Bowl, you'd think skepticism about climate change would all but have evaporated under all this heat. But despite of the scientific consensus of 97 percent of the world's climatologists that human activity (largely through the burning of fossil fuels like coal and tar sands oil) is warming the planet and fostering extreme weather events all over the world, the climate skeptics and deniers are as vehement and vitriolic as ever. Climate change, to them, is still an "Al Gore hoax" -- a scam being foisted on a gullible public by tree-hugging, 'Big Government'-loving liberals.
So, if the overwhelming majority of international climate scientists are on board with anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming and advocating immediate steps to address the danger, who are these other guys? What are their credentials?
To answer those questions, 350.org-Nebraska researched the backgrounds of the most well-known climate skeptics claiming scientific authority and prepared the following report.
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Tim Rinne
NFP State Coordinator
Growing organic foods… in an environmentally sustainable manner… for consumer members in the local community. That’s exactly the kind of socially responsible endeavor you’d expect from a couple of Nebraskans for Peace. Cooperation, community-building and sustainability are our watchwords, our peacemaking stock-in-trade.
Yet, even for someone like me (who’s worked in the peace movement professionally for 20 years), there’s still something powerful and heartening about seeing people live their convictions and actually put their beliefs into practice.
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Bold Nebraska has put together a Citizen Rally in Nebraska to make our voices heard. This is a very important time to act because so far our state elected officials have failed to pass any state regulations or to change the pipeline route. Also, Sec. Clinton is not holding a second round of hearings for citizens and state agencies to comment on the revised environmental study. So, let's bring the comments not only to our state elected officials but also to the State Department. If they won't act, citizens will! On May 12, Citizen Rally's are being held across all of the states potentially affected by the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.
Please save this date, Thursday, May 12, from Noon til 2pm, at the State Capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska and join with other concerned Nebraskans to gather comments to submit to Secretary Clinton and to urge the Unicameral, Governor Heineman & Attorney General Bruning to pass state-based oil pipeline regulations. This is a great opportunity to weigh in on the three landowner protectionary bills that have stalled in the Natural Resources Committee.
There will be a bus carrying NE citizens coming from Stuart, NE, at 6:30am from Stracke Bar & Grille on the north side of Hwy 20. The bus will head south through O'Neill on Hwy 281 to Grand Island. Then it will head east on I-80 to Lincoln. If you would like to ride the bus, call 402-217-5217 or Lynda Buoy at 402-684-2209. Leave a message & she will call you back.
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Japanese citizen Nobuko Tsukui delivered the ‘Greeting’ at the Lincoln NFP Chapter “Annual Lantern Float” last August commemorating the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nobuko, who took her Ph.D. at UNL in the ’60s, is a distinguished critic of American poetry and translator of Japanese poetry and prose. She has written about the poet Ezra Pound, worked with author John Gardner, translated the writings of the Japanese novelist Hotta and many other Japanese works, and published a number of essays on 19th-century American literature. She is also a member of Nebraskans for Peace. Recently she sent her journals and reflections on the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe in Japan. Her reflections may help us to understand what Japanese people—who are not at the center of the catastrophe but still feel its power—experience in these times. These reflections were not intended for publication, but I asked Nobuko’s permission to condense them for posting on the NFP website. (Paul Olson)
#1: March 16
I just realized that I have more than a dozen friends living in the U.S., who are concerned about me, especially after the horrendous earthquake of March 11. Until now I have tried to respond individually to each of you. But for the time being, please allow me to send my e-mail to all of you simultaneously. Because I believe you (in the U.S.) are getting the reports, pictures, statistics, etc. on this present disaster from TV, newspapers, the Internet, etc., I will write more about what is taking place around me, as a kind of reflection of, or a glimpse at, the effects felt in Tokyo of the devastation in the northern part of Japan.
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On the Danger Coal-fired Energy Poses to the Midwest Climate
The Omaha Public Power District prides itself on serving more customers than any other power district in the state. Governed by a non-partisan, eight-member board of directors who are publicly elected to six-year terms, OPPD is required by law to deliver the most affordable and reliable electricity to the rate-payers in its 13-county service area.
Well over half (57 percent) of that electricity is currently generated from coal mined from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin and transported by the Union Pacific Railroad to OPPD coal-fired plants in North Omaha and Nebraska City. Oil and natural gas (27 percent) and nuclear energy (15 percent) constitute the other two major power sources in OPPD’s generation portfolio. Only one percent of OPPD’s electricity is derived from renewable energy, though the board of directors has set a goal of producing ten percent of their energy from renewables by 2020.
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