SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
posted by
takyon
on Wednesday September 02 2015, @09:15AM
from the that's-what-secret-service-is-for dept.
from the that's-what-secret-service-is-for dept.
US President Barack Obama will trek through the wilderness in Alaska this week with British TV adventurer Bear Grylls, the NBC channel has announced. He is due to tape an episode of Running Wild with Bear Grylls to observe the effects of climate change on the area, it said. He is the first president to appear on the show, to be aired later this year.
President Obama is on a three-day tour of Alaska aimed at highlighting the pace of climate change. It is part of his administration's efforts to build support for new legislation significantly capping carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the US, as well as raise attention to the ways climate change has damaged Alaska's natural landscape.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Obama to Test Survivor Skills on Bear Grylls Show
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 50 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift.
-- Shelley
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RedBear on Wednesday September 02 2015, @11:02AM
My wife and I went on a road trip up north a couple of summers ago. We went to the Seward area and drove out to see Exit Glacier. We kept seeing these funny little brown signs by the roadside, with white lettering. We couldn't figure out what they were for. They didn't seem to be mile markers. They were just numbers, no units. Four-digit numbers.
Turned out they were years. Marking the position of the edge of the glacier since about 1790. It's been receding the whole time, and the receding is accelerating. Before long it will be gone, just like most of the glaciers on the planet. Our grandchildren will not understand what a glacier is, because there won't be any to see.
There's an incredible documentary called "Chasing Ice" that really brings home the monumental scale and speed of glacial ice loss that's going on. Watch it. We're losing glaciers that have been essentially stable for thousands of years.
It's exasperating living in a nation where half the population puts on blinders and pretends there's absolutely nothing wrong with the climate, and that nothing bad will ever happen. I may be in the minority but I think the President going to this extent to highlight the negative effects of climate change that are already happening, especially here in Alaska, is one of the best possible uses of a few days of his time. But that's just me.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @11:43AM
What nation is that? Im from the US and have never heard that position.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @02:34PM
They are called conservatives. The idea that the status quo, or what once was the status quo, is plenty good enough for the foreseeable future is conservationism... Okay, they are more like ~45% of the population in the US.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @02:42PM
Can you find one person claiming to be a conservative (or even anyone at all) that claims "nothing bad will ever happen"?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 02 2015, @08:00PM
You are so right! The usual mantra is: "Everything is bad enough already, will get even worse, can we go back to Reagan's era?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zinho on Wednesday September 02 2015, @03:12PM
Please be careful not to conflate Conservatism with Conservationism. They look a lot alike, and philosophically come from the same roots; however, a Conservationist is much more likely to be aligned with the Green Party and the Sierra Club than the GOP.
A Conservationist is concerned about the sustainable maintenance of our natural environment, and can frequently be found advocating recycling, permaculture, and wildlife diversity protections. We've only got one planet, and I want my Grandchildren to be able to live on it, too.
A Conservative is all about "I want to do things like my Grampappy did them"; if that includes open-pit strip mines, chopping tops off of mountains to support mining operations, and dumping coal ash into rivers then the Conservative will vigorously advocate all three.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday September 02 2015, @05:41PM
If you specifically go back to 1850 or so, a large part of the difference is due to the ending of the "Little Ice Age". In some winters towards the end of the 18th century, New York harbor froze solid. The Little Ice Age officially ended around 1850. Sure, people have an influence on the climate, but it is easy to forget that nature plays a huge role as well.
In any case, this is the next "stupid political trick". Whenever a politician does something like this, you have to ask: what is he really after? Watch the money - someone, or some company, or some organization is intended to benefit from this. Professional politicians don't do anything "for a good cause".
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.