[The] man of sin [shall] be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 KJV)
Jesus saith, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6 KJV)
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13 KJV)
November 30, 2015
Majority of Americans are Strongly Opposed to Increasing Taxes on Electricity or Gasoline as a Way to Fight 'Global Warming'; NASA Pushes Propaganda for Paris Climate Talks, Claiming It Soon Will Be Too Hot to Grow Food
Seventy-five percent of Americans polled said that global warming was
already having a serious environmental impact or would in the future.
Nine in 10 Democrats agreed, compared with 58 percent of Republicans.
One-third of Republicans said they believed it would never have much of
an impact on the environment. But just one in five Americans favored increasing taxes on electricity
as a way to fight global warming; six in 10 were strongly opposed,
including 49 percent of Democrats. And support was not much higher for
increasing gasoline taxes, at 36 percent over all. Thinking
about policies to reduce carbon emissions, Americans generally favor
regulating business activity more than taxing consumers.
November 30, 2015
New York Times - A solid majority of Americans say the United States should join an international treaty to limit the impact of global warming, but on this and other climate-related questions, opinion divides sharply along partisan lines, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Two-thirds
of Americans support the United States joining a binding international
agreement to curb growth of greenhouse gas emissions, but a slim
majority of Republicans remain opposed, the poll found. Sixty-three
percent of Americans — including a bare majority of Republicans — said
they would support domestic policy limiting carbon emissions from power
plants.
Public support for international and domestic measures to address climate change may provide a lift for American negotiators attending the major United Nations climate change conference that began in Paris on Monday. But the stark partisan divide on climate policy will still make it difficult for President Obama
and his successors to put in place the energy and climate policies that
will be needed to support a robust international agreement, the goal of
the Paris talks.
Republicans
in Congress and many Republican governors oppose Mr. Obama’s proposal
to limit emissions from power plants, for example, complicating his
ability to meet targets he has set to comply with United Nations climate
goals. And the Obama administration has made it clear that any
agreement it would sign in Paris would not take the form of an
internationally enforced treaty that would require Senate ratification.
Still,
the shift in public opinion has many advocates of strong climate change
measures hopeful that the Paris talks could provide a turning point.
“If
you just look over the past five or six years since Copenhagen, there’s
been a shift,” said David Waskow, director of the International Climate
Initiative at the World Resources Institute, referring to the largely
inconclusive global summit meeting
that took place in Denmark in 2009.
“There’s much more awareness of
issues like sea level rise, water scarcity and climate instability.”
Seventy-five
percent of Americans polled said that global warming was already having
a serious environmental impact or would in the future. Nine in 10
Democrats agreed, compared with 58 percent of Republicans. One-third of
Republicans said they believed it would never have much of an impact on
the environment.
Thinking
about policies to reduce carbon emissions, Americans generally favor
regulating business activity more than taxing consumers. The poll found
broad support for capping power plant emissions. Half of all Americans
said they thought the government should take steps to restrict drilling,
logging and mining on public lands, compared with 45 percent who
opposed such restrictions. Support for limiting mineral extraction on
public lands rose to 58 percent among Democrats.
But
just one in five Americans favored increasing taxes on electricity as a
way to fight global warming; six in 10 were strongly opposed, including
49 percent of Democrats. And support was not much higher for increasing
gasoline taxes, at 36 percent over all.
On Monday, the United Nations began its climate change conference,
bringing together representatives from 195 countries and the European
Union in an effort to reach a binding agreement to address the warming
of the planet. This is the 21st gathering of nations who belong to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but the first since Copenhagen to elicit high hopes for a global commitment.
At
the third such meeting, in 1997, the parties agreed to the Kyoto
Protocol, acknowledging the existence of man-made global warming and
setting goals for worldwide emissions reductions. But that year the
United States Senate voted 95-0 to adopt a measure
rejecting any international agreement that “would result in serious
harm to the economy of the United States.” The United States never
joined the Kyoto treaty.
In advance of this week’s summit meeting, Mr. Obama made the case that addressing climate change is an economic imperative.“We have to do something about climate change,” he said at a meeting with business leaders
last month. “Because not only is it going to have an impact on our
children and our grandchildren, and we have a moral obligation to leave
them a planet that is as wonderful as the one that we inherited from our
forebears, but it’s really important for America’s bottom line and
economic growth.”
While
it is true that young Americans tend to be slightly more concerned
about global warming than their elders, their views are not as
environmentally proactive as those of some other demographic groups. Fifty-one percent of respondents to the new poll said they worried about
global warming a great deal or a fair amount. Among adults under 30,
the number was 54 percent; for Democrats, it climbed to 60 percent.
And
while 68 percent of respondents under 30 supported taxing companies’
carbon emissions, that was just five points higher than the overall
number — and lower than the nearly three-quarters of Democrats who
professed support.
During
the darkest days of the recent recession, concern about climate change
became subsumed by economic anxieties. But concern about the environment
is now back to pre-recession levels. Most respondents to the recent
poll said that in situations where a sacrifice must be made, protecting
the environment was more important than stimulating the economy — by a
margin of 54 percent to 34 percent.
This
is nearly identical to the national numbers in spring 2007, just before
the Great Recession, when 52 percent took the side of protecting the
environment and 34 percent said the economy was more important. In 2009,
at the depths of the recession, people favored stimulating the economy
by a margin of more than two to one.
The
nationwide telephone poll was conducted Nov. 18 to 22 among 1,030
adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus four percentage
points.
Business Insider - As world leaders convene in Paris this week at the United Nations Climate Summit (COP21) to discuss solutions to the growing threat of climate change, we could all use a little perspective.
And what better perspective than from space?
Climate change due to human activity is causing visible shifts on our planet, and NASA is uniquely positioned to observe these effects.
"If we continue on our current course, it's going to be hard to feed this planet because it's so hot," Ellen Stofan, NASA's chief scientist, told Business Insider.
In fact, photosynthesis — the
process all plants use to convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrates —
declines rapidly at temperatures above about 95 degrees Fahrenheit,
Stofan explained during a talk October 16 at The James Beard Foundation
Food Conference, a meeting to discuss the future of food.
And the evidence suggests that we could reach too-high temperatures too soon.
An alarming trend
Stofan has spent most of her career studying Venus, a planet with a
major greenhouse effect — a fancy term for a planet's atmosphere
trapping the sun's heat and warming its surface.
Here on Earth, NASA satellites are seeing a similar trend, and it's
veering toward dangerous levels. This warming trend is bad news for our
ability to grow food.
Here's an animation of global surface temperature anomalies from 1880
to 2013. Higher-than-normal temperatures are in red and
lower-than-normal temps are in blue:
As you can see, the number of hotter-than-average patches has drastically increased in the last few decades.
This is actual data — "this is not a model," Stofan said.
This wouldn't be the first time
human-caused climate change has affected our ability to grow food,
Stofan pointed out. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s, which had a devastating
effect on agriculture in the US and Canada, can be traced to poor
farming practices and severe drought brought on by climate change.
The difference today is that NASA has the tools to help farmers on Earth cope with climate change and become more resilient.
NASA and the US Agency for International Development jointly run a program called SERVIR
that uses satellite monitoring, geospatial maps, and predictive models
to help developing countries in eastern and southern Africa, the
Hindu-Kush region of the Himalayas, and the lower Mekong River Basin in
Southeast Asia make better environmental decisions.
Using
these high-tech tools, NASA is helping countries deal with everything
from floods to superstorms. They're also helping them become more
resilient to the long-term effects of climate change.
When it comes to the future of Earth, Stofan says she's an optimist.
"People are
becoming more aware of climate change," she said. "If we start giving
them actionable information, changing how we grow food, and looking at
how bad it's going to get, I think we will adapt."
When we lose our economic security, we also lose our freedom and are forced to survive any way we can. The subliminal, one-world religion is self-preservation — the survival instinct. It's basic to human nature. The Bible shows a coming world leader who will exploit this self-preservation instinct and will bring this religion to its logical conclusion. And, if possible, even some of the very elect will be deceived by this appeal to their pocketbook and personal security.
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1 KJV)
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32 KJV)
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:12 KJV)
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