Here’s another story from the weekend that shouldn’t get lost in the shuffle.
A comprehensive four-year study of warming in the Arctic shows that heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks around the world are contributing to profound environmental changes, including sharp retreats of glaciers and sea ice, thawing of permafrost and shifts in the weather, the oceans and the atmosphere.
The study, commissioned by eight nations with Arctic territory, including the United States, says the changes are likely to harm native communities, wildlife and economic activity but also to offer some benefits, like longer growing seasons. The report is due to be released on Nov. 9, but portions were provided yesterday to The New York Times by European participants in the project.
While Arctic warming has been going on for decades and has been studied before, this is the first thorough assessment of the causes and consequences of the trend.
Seems like pretty important information for the public to hear about. Why a Nov. 9 release date?
Several of the Europeans who provided parts of the report said they had done so because the Bush administration had delayed publication until after the presidential election, partly because of the political contentiousness of global warming.
I’m sure this comes as a big surprise to…absolutely no one. A comprehensive research study about a critical environmental problem is done, but it’s being held because the administration doesn’t want us to read it before voting. It’d be shocking if examples like this one didn’t pop up about once a week for the last three-and-a-half years.