Those maps will have to be redrawn
August 11, 2006 1:47 PM   Subscribe

"Animals are on the run. Plants are migrating too. The Earth's creatures, save for one species, do not have thermostats in their living rooms that they can adjust for an optimum environment. Animals and plants are adapted to specific climate zones, and they can survive only when they are in those zones...Gardeners and bird watchers are well aware of this, and their handbooks contain maps of the zones in which a tree or flower can survive and the range of each bird species. Those maps will have to be redrawn." Jim Hansen on the global impact of global warming. Meanwhile, the National Association of manufacturers is happy to tell you everything you really need to know on the subject. (More from NAM here.)
posted by alms (12 comments total)
 
The really sad thing is...you can't help but, deep down, hope that idiots and dissemblers like the NAM are right. Because if they're not...*sigh*
posted by you just lost the game at 1:50 PM on August 11, 2006


What about Michael Crichton? You want to ignore him now, but if it wasn't for his brave advocacy, we would never have emerged from the Dino Crisis.
posted by grobstein at 1:55 PM on August 11, 2006


Hope is not a plan.

I actually found the Hansen piece reasonably optimistic, because it makes clear that we do have time to act. We just have to do it.
posted by alms at 1:56 PM on August 11, 2006


60 minutes interview with Hansen.
posted by homunculus at 3:11 PM on August 11, 2006


[only] Our children, grandchildren, and many more generations will bear the consequences of choices that we make in the next few years
This is why it would be better if we lived 200 years. Wait, scratch that. I don't want that many.
posted by uni verse at 3:53 PM on August 11, 2006


Just a vital piece by Dr. Hansen. When I read it in the NYRB (for my money, the best periodical in the country) I felt both incredibly distressed by the inevitability of looming disasters, our (both humanity generally and the West in particular) part in causing those, and strangely hopeful that we could pull off a last minute 'save' by taking the steps Hansen descibes as needed for the gradual warming scenario. Sorry for the rambling, but this piece really hit me, and I let it slip my mind, thanks so much for posting this and bringing it back. Gonna try to do contribute here somehow.
posted by Gaius Gracchus at 4:58 PM on August 11, 2006


What the heck does a puppeteer know about global warming?!
posted by mullingitover at 5:11 PM on August 11, 2006


That NAM blog piece... such transparent bullshit. This Pat Cleary should be ashamed of him/herself. "We now re-join our regularly scheduled programming" indeed. We can only hope such folk (greedy shills for polluting special interests) will suffer the consequences of global warming in some direct and personal fashion, like, say, heat stroke. Or having their 4-bedroom/3 and 1/2 bath home blown apart by some particularly viscious hurricane. And don't these people have kids? Don't they consider their future? Like, what kind of planet they'll have to live on?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:01 PM on August 11, 2006


Great piece, thank you. How much more proof do we need? While it is heartening to hear that there is still hope, somehow everyone seems strangely hypnotized, watching as the train comes down the track... Pray that we will be delivered from Bush and his cadre of evil henchman.
posted by blue shadows at 7:41 PM on August 11, 2006


I've told quite a few people about this article sinc I first read it. I lead with the armadillos.
posted by taosbat at 8:45 PM on August 11, 2006


"Hope is not a plan."

worth reiterating.
posted by Smedleyman at 10:05 PM on August 11, 2006


"When I recently met Larry King, he said, 'Nobody cares about fifty years from now.' "

Also - fuck Larry King in the ass. Bush too. And the NAM. We had best get people off their 4th points and doing something about this. 'Cause I'd like to have grandkids someday and they're going to look at my uniform and other stuff and ask me - "Yes, but what did you do about the air?"
posted by Smedleyman at 10:48 PM on August 11, 2006


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