Repub. Meteorologist to Romney: My Top 10 Reasons for Republicans to Accept Reality on the Climate
(His lame assed attempt to appeal to Rmoney in the last 2 paragraphs - the title for which should read "How Barack Obama has started to help you and your family" - will fall on deaf ears and he's wrong on fiscal politics, but he makes some good points about climate change and I thought it was worth sharing this very rare voice in the Reich wing's wilderness)
Republican Meteorologist to Mitt Romney: My Top Ten Reasons for Republicans to Accept Reality on the Climate
Paul Douglas | Sep 10, 2012 12:34 PM EDT
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As a Republican business owner, entrepreneur, meteorologist and father of two upbeat, optimistic boys, I may not fit the stereotype of a "global warming alarmist." I'm an Evangelical Christian. I'm enthusiastic about streamlining government and letting the markets work. But unlike some, I see no inherent struggle between my faith and the ability of science to improve our understanding of the world. The Creator gave me a brain, to think and reason, and react to facts on the ground. And I'm disillusioned, because some in my party are pro-science-denial, and on the wrong side of history.
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If any climate change skeptic had spent the year I have watching the weather maps - I'm confident they would be saying the same thing. These maps passed "normal" a long time ago. 2012 is the most severe year in recorded history; 46% of the USA has experienced extremes in moisture, drought, temperatures and tropical cyclones, breaking the old record set at the height of the Dust Bowl in 1934. This has been The Year of All or Nothing: drought or flood. And jaw-dropping weather is accomplishing what climate scientists couldn't quite pull off: convincing a majority of reasonable, logical, God-fearing Americans that something is up. Something has changed.
I make predictions every day, and based on the data I'm seeing here's my long-range prognosis. What we just experienced was not an aberration. It's a conservative example (most climate scientists have been, if anything, extremely conservative in their projections) of what's to come. Sizzling summers will become the norm in the years ahead. We may soon look back on 2012 with fondness for its mild weather. We've experienced 7 times more record highs than record lows in 2012; expect that lop-sided ratio to continue. Meteorologists will be spending more precious airtime tracking brushfires -- when they're not warning of impending floods. Nights will trend warmer and fewer subzero outbreaks will reach the continental US, a big silver lining for many. But both Greenland and the Arctic are melting faster than computer models predicted, with the Arctic shattering the old record set in 2007. Scientists were once predicting it would be ice-free in 2080 or 2090. Considering this acceleration we're seeing, they're now saying it could be as early at 2030, and some have even said 2015. You heard right. More water absorbing sunlight and less ice reflecting sunlight is accelerating a feedback effect, speeding the warming we're already witnessing, worldwide.
Full article with his top 10:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/paul-douglas/republican-meteorologist-_b_1871010.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000040
Clue to what his #1 is...
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