Global Warming

[the_future_modernes]

The Snowless Kilimanjaro, The Glacierless National Park

To a lot of people, the issue of global warming and climate change seems too large and abstract to comprehend. Emissions levels and carbon trading and ocean acidification and methane and more methane and the humanitarian and political impacts of up to 200,000,000 people being displaced, and many people are too overwhelmed even to begin to know what to think.

It's not only those susceptible to astroturf deniers, and it's not only the deliberately astonishingly irresponsible, it's also the many people who do know we have a problem, but who don't understand the depth of the crisis. When trying to explain global warming and climate change, sometimes a simple image or concept will help. The science journal Nature just reported one:

The snows of Kilimanjaro are rapidly disappearing and will be gone by 2033, predicts the most detailed analysis yet of the iconic glaciers gracing Africa's highest peak.
In addition to shrinking in area, Kilimanjaro's glaciers are thinning from the top down, says Ohio State University's Lonnie Thompson, lead author of the new study. "They're being decapitated," he says. "In fact, they're probably not really glaciers anymore. They're remnants of another climate."

Yes, in less than 25 years, the legendary snows of Kilimanjaro will be gone. Does that seem real enough? How about a Glacier National Park without any glaciers? National Geographic had this one, in March:MORE

In which the United States proceeds to try to fuck up the Internet for everyone.

[the_future_modernes]

What teh FUCK?





New ACTA copyright treaty dodges the UN, poor countries and activists

Michael Geist sez, "The World Intellectual Property Organization may be best known for the Internet treaties that led to the DMCA, but in recent years groups like EFF, KEI, and Public Knowledge has helped to open things up and move toward a Development Agenda that better balances international intellectual property policy. That progress may be threatened by the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which officials now acknowledge is designed to exclude WIPO, developing countries, and NGOs." Moreover, the criminal provisions go well beyond clear cases of commercial infringement by including criminal sanctions such as potential imprisonment for "significant wilful copyright and trademark infringement even where there is no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain." Jail time for non-commercial infringement will generate considerable opposition, but it is the internet provisions that are likely to prove to be the most controversial. At the December meeting in Paris, the US submitted a "non-paper" that discussed internet copyright provisions, liability for internet service providers, and legal protection for digital locks.MORE

Stuff, like this:





Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.
The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

• * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.
• * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

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WHat the hell is WRONG with these greedy bloated assholes????