Global warming is poised to substantially change the climate in the Northeast if heat-trapping emissions are not curtailed. The extent and impacts of the change depend on the choices that governments, businesses and citizens make today. So concludes the first study released today by the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA), a collaboration between the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and a team of independent scientists from universities across the Northeast and the nation. To read the full report, visit www.climatechoices.org/ne.
"The very notion of the Northeast as we know it is at stake," said Dr. Cameron Wake, Research Associate Professor at the University of New Hampshire's Climate Change Research Center and co-lead of the report. "The near-term emissions choices we make in the Northeast and throughout the world will help determine the climate and quality of life our children and grandchildren experience."
Let's focus on the words 'near-term' and set them aside for later.
In other non-Foley news, the New York Times shows us just how insanely optimistic and out of touch with reality the GOP is.
Even as the Bush administration urges Americans to stay the course in Iraq, Republicans in Congress have put down a quiet marker in the apparent hope that V-I Day might be only months away.
Tucked away in fine print in the military spending bill for this past year was a lump sum of $20 million to pay for a celebration in the nation’s capital “for commemoration of success” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Not surprisingly, the money was not spent.
Now Congressional Republicans are saying, in effect, maybe next year. A paragraph written into spending legislation and approved by the Senate and House allows the $20 million to be rolled over into 2007.
To go back to the words we set aside earlier, this $20 million isn't going to be spent within any time frame anyone could call 'near-term'. In fact, there's a real possibility it will never be spent at all...
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