An international team of scientists recently surveyed almost 12,000 climate science research publications to gauge the consensus on manmade global warming among people who know lots about climate science. They did this because some people still like to pretend like there’s plenty of skepticism and doubt about what’s causing all this.
What did they find? Well, of the 4,000 papers that declared a position on the cause of global warming since 1991, 97.1% of them agreed that humans were causing a majority of global warming. The rest? Most of them didn’t claim a position because it’s so well-accepted that they didn’t want to waste the space.
And just how small is the leftover, even if it was real doubt (which it isn’t)? That 2.9% remainder is less than:
- The percentage of Americans who think we never landed on the moon (6%)
- The percentage of Americans who think a UFO landed in Roswell (21%)
- The percentage of Americans who believe in Bigfoot (14%)
- The percentage of Americans who think airplane contrails are chemicals secretly released by the government to control our minds (5%)
- The percentage of Americans who think lizard people secretly control the government (4%)
- The percentage of Americans who think Paul McCartney died in a car crash in 1966 (5%)
Can we start accepting how much everyone who understands the science is in agreement and work on fixing it and adapting to it? The doubt is not real. Just like the Loch Ness Monster.
Read more about the climate research survey at Smithsonian.com. Read more about the crazy psychology behind conspiracy theories here (which is all I am willing to call climate science denialism from here on out).
So there.
Sen. John Kerry is leading the way in asking the federal government to make financial aid a little easier to come by for transgender students or students of same-sex parents.
For trans students, filling out the FAFSA, which determines financial aid, can be difficult and unhelpful because the name and gender information students provide may not match their official documentation. Kerry called this issue “disturbing” and wants to find a way to fix it.
Kerry also asked that students with same-sex parents not be short-changed because their parents’ relationship receives fewer benefits due to DOMA. From the Advocate:
“I request that you consider ways to clarify the FAFSA for applicants who have same-sex parents and for students who are gay and transgender,” Kerry wrote. “I also ask that you consider the whole of the financial aid process — beginning to end — from the perspective of these applicants and make any possible modifications that would improve the application and reward procedures for all applicants.”
Kerry’s turning out to be quite the ally. These changes could make a big difference for lots of students, so hopefully more people get behind them.
INHUMANITY Egyptian army soldiers assault and arrest a female protester during clashes in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Saturday. The country’s military rulers escalated a bloody crackdown on street protesters, beating them and setting their tents ablaze, even as the prime minister Kamel Ganzouri denied in a televised news conference that security forces were using violence. (Photo: Reuters via the New York Times)
These fucking pigs.
The whole world is watching.
Steve Benen, Washington Monthly
A wave of new Republican-driven election laws will make it harder for millions of eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012. The most significant restriction requires Americans in several states to present state-issued photo IDs when they vote. It is estimated that 3.3 million eligible voters in the affected states — Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin — don’t have such IDs now. The GOP insists the new rules were needed to stamp out voter fraud. The Left maintains these laws add up to a coordinated effort to suppress the Democratic vote.
(via theweekmagazine)
ID laws of any kind are voter suppression plain and simple, they limit the democratic rights of the poor and homeless. Since the poor and homeless overwhelmingly vote Democrat (shocking, I know) it’s in the GOP’s best interest to keep them out of the ballot box.
-Joe
(via stfuconservatives)
In a tense showdown above the East River, the police arrested about 400 demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street protests who took to the roadway as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday afternoon.
The police did not immediately release precise arrest figures, but said it was the choice of those marchers that led to the swift enforcement.
“Protesters who used the Brooklyn Bridge walkway were not arrested,” said the head police spokesman, Paul J. Browne. “Those who took over the Brooklyn-bound roadway, and impeded vehicle traffic, were arrested.”
But many protesters said that they thought the police had tricked and trapped them, allowing them onto the bridge and even escorting them across, only to surround them in orange netting after hundreds of them had entered.
“The cops watched and did nothing, indeed, seemed to guide us on to the roadway,” said Jesse A. Myerson, a media coordinator for Occupy Wall Street who was in the march but was not arrested.
Things came to a head shortly after 4 p.m., as the 1,500 or so marchers reached the foot of the Brooklyn-bound car lanes of the bridge, just east of City Hall. In their march north from an encampment at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, they had stayed on the sidewalks – forming a long column of humanity penned in by officers on scooters.
Where the entrance to the bridge narrowed their path, some marchers, including organizers, stuck to the generally agreed-upon route and headed up onto the wooden walkway that runs between and about 15 feet above the bridge’s traffic lanes.
But about 20 others headed for the Brooklyn-bound roadway, said Christopher T. Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who accompanied the march. Some of them chanted “take the bridge.” They were met by a handful of high-level police supervisors, who blocked the way and announced repeatedly through bullhorns that the marchers were blocking the roadway and that if they continued to do so, they would be subject to arrest.
There were no physical barriers, though, and at one point, the marchers began walking up the roadway with the police commanders in front of them – seeming, from a distance, as if they were leading the way. The Chief of Department Joseph J. Esposito, and a horde or other white-shirted commanders, was among them.
The New York Times, “Police Arrest About 400 Protestors on Brooklyn Bridge.”
Paul Browne just straight up lies through his fucking teeth now. And he’s just any old cop. He’s a deputy commissioner.
(via inothernews)
This should have far more notes than it already does.
Seriously, the second Chase charges me for this (currently if I make a certain number of debit purchases per month I *avoid* fees) it’s back to cash for everything. There’s a branch right by my pharmacy, I can do it.
Find a credit union:
(Source: inothernews)
And their comment section has also been removed:
So… someone didn’t like all those hundreds of positive comments about the possibility of a queer relationship in the show.
What the hell is wrong with them? I don’t know who is behind this, whether it’s the network or the folks at Frederator trying to backtrack, but this is SHITTY.
I think we should get this on some news sites. This censorship is reaching a new level of scandal every day.
Reblog, people need to hear about this.
