Global Warming Protests Held Across U.S.

More Than 1,300 Events Urged Congress To Require 80 Percent Cut In Emissions By 2050

(AP)  Americans worried about climate change gathered Saturday on ski slopes and in cities for a nationwide day of demonstrations aimed at drawing attention to global warming.

More than 1,300 events were organized in every state under the banner Step It Up 2007 to push Congress to require an 80 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

“When it comes to global warming, I don't exactly think President Bush is doing such a hot job,” said 12-year-old New Yorker Tiffany Cordero. “A lot of people are thinking just of now. But we won't have a 'now' if we don't focus on the future.”

Tiffany delivered a speech for a rally in lower Manhattan's Battery Park, overlooking New York Harbor, where people dressed in blue — some equipped with scuba gear and beach balls — gathered to form a Sea of People human line to symbolically mark New York's future coastline.

Scientists say melting polar ice caps and glaciers will cause ocean levels to rise, although estimates vary. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected that ocean levels will rise 7 to 23 inches this century, but other scientists warn the sea level could rise 10 feet or more, enough to flood Lower Manhattan and other low-lying coastal areas.

The threatened rise in the ocean also was dramatized by a New Coast Parade in Portland, Maine, one of more than 30 observances in that state. “The most important things that we have a responsibility to do in government are to prepare our children for a bright future and to preserve and protect our natural resources,” Maine Gov. John Baldacci told a gathering in Portland.

The nationwide events were spearheaded by a group of recent graduates from Vermont's Middlebury College, who organized a campaign of blogs, e-mail messages and word of mouth communications.

“We see this to be the most pressing issue of our time, and our generation,” said Will Bates, 23, one of six former Middlebury students who helped organize the event with author Bill McKibben, a scholar in residence at the college and among the first to write about global warming, in his 1989 book “The End of Nature.”

In Chicago's Daley Plaza, about 500 people listened to speeches from a panel of environmental experts who called for a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. The crowd also waved signs exclaiming “Step it up Congress.”

In California, 200 hikers made a strenuous, hour-long climb up a steep canyon to a point just below the famous Hollywood sign.

“It takes real passion to make a big difference — strength in numbers,” said Kara Thurman of Santa Monica.

Earlier, hundreds gathered along Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade just east of the Pacific Ocean to listen to lectures and listen to makers of “green” products pitch their wares.

“We have such a wonderful planet and it is really tragic for us to ruin it with global warming,” said organizer Jim Stewart of Earth Day L.A. “The bottom line is everybody needs to be carbon-neutral.”

In one of the day's first demonstrations, skiers unfurled a protest banner in April snow on Whiteface Mountain near Wilmington, N.Y. Another group made an early morning hike to the summit of Maine's Cadillac Mountain, which is the first spot in the U.S. to be lit by the rising sun.

The Whiteface Mountain skiers fear long-term temperature increases promise trouble for native plants, wildlife and people in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York state.

“It's subtle,” said Nola Royce, who has been going to the Adirondacks since 1971. For example, she said, the region's notorious, biting black flies are emerging earlier in the season.

Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, said less obvious concerns about warming include pests moving northward. He mentioned tick-borne Lyme disease, now a problem farther south in Connecticut, New Jersey and southern New York, as well as the Sirex wood wasp, hemlock woolly adelgid and Asian longhorned beetle.

“All these tree eaters normally prefer more temperate climates than the Adirondacks,” Woodworth said. “And as the Adirondack climate gets warmer in the winters the below-freezing barrier that has held these pests at bay is going to be lost.”

[infidel_us]

I think I'll do some skiing this weekend up in some powdery global warming!

[erasmus6]

that should read: Global warming is causing the weather to be ERRATIC and severe weather to be more frequent.

[erasmus6]

janem4

Global warming is causing the weather to be ERRATIC and more frequent.

That noise you hear is me banging my head against the wall.

[ralan40]

cutting down on CO2 emmissions alone will not do the trick. These "news media scientists" who think human influenced CO2 rediction is the answer would eat a salad with a stick of butter and think they're on a diet. Are we forgetting about methane? Another greenhouse gas that is 10 times stronger than CO2. This is released by decomposition of living matter. The warming oceans are filled with it and releasing it at a greater rate. What about the rest of the world? China will surpass the US in emmision of human released Greenhouse gasses. I say Human influenced because nature creates more greenhouse gasses than we can.

[jimfinster]

dlpracer:

Let's get right to the heart of this debate.

1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Fact.
2) CO2 levels have increased approx 40%. Fact.
3) Atmospheric temperatures have increased at the same time. Fact.
4) Increasing temperatures affect climate. Fact.

Now, how in the world can you spin such basic information? These are facts, not computer models. Facts independently verified by many different researchers in many different countries. Jeez, dude.

[jimfinster]

dlpracer:

The "Oregon Petition" is a joke. You really need to go back and look at what it says, and who actually signed it. There is an excellent summary in Wikipedia.

[rheola-2009]

Ainttaken

You seem to be well on the ball there, but I can not afford a hit man.

[rheola-2009]

Dipracer

The world has always had extreme weather events,of that there is no doubt, but never with the rapidity of now.
are you not being just a bit stupid with your comment of my perfect 75 degree day, yes I did in past state that I was enjoying such a day, but you know as well as do I that the weather has many vaguaries, and like you, I both enjoy or abhore them, depending on the event.

It is hard to exactly define an EXTREME weather event, however I do feel that the present storm passing throughj the U.S. could easily, and well be called just that.

Janem4

You can be as perdantic as you wish Climate change/Global warming, You, as I and all others know full well, those terms are used to describe the same situation.
Your other statement is just ridiculous, grow up.

[dlpracer]

rheola says:

That storm passing through the U.S. at present is exactly what the climatologists have pointed out repeatably, that would be, and is proving to be, so many times, on an increasing scale throughout the world.

-------------

...and it is people like you that are dangerous. Everytime there is anything short of a perfect 75 degree, light wind, cloudless day...you will blame it on GW. Pity the poor children of today's hysterics that will never be able to enjoy a thunderstorm, one of nature's great light shows, because they will have been brainwashed into thinking that the end is near...tsk, tsk.

How do you explain this storm in 1888...well before SUV's and Al Gore???

The Great Blizzard of 1888 (March 11 %u2013 March 14, 1888) was one of the most severe blizzards in United States recorded history, with snow drifts in excess of 50 feet. All across the eastern seaboard there were snow walls up to 50 inches high.

That is recorded HISTORY....with pictures if you care to look it up.

What's the explaination for that EXTREME weather event.....HUH???

Tornados are a way of life this time of year and have been for centuries. Let's recall the Super Outbreak of April 3, 1974 that killed 315, and injured 5000 people. Here is the tornado count by severity: F5 6, F4 23, F3 35, F2 30, F1 31, F0 23. All in one day.

By the way, that was during the media's global COOLING frenzy.

Try again.

[rheola-2009]

WHen you see so many persons posting, that can not present an argument beyond attempting to denigrate Al Gore, it certainl shows the limits of their mentality, that being their complete failure to do any more than parrot what they, either have said over and over in the past, or simply have jumped on the Al Gore bandwagon, as their mental capacity makes it impossible for them to come up with some thinking of their own.

That storm passing through the U.S. at present is exactly what the climatologists have pointed out repeatably, that would be, and is proving to be, so many times, on an increasing scale throughout the world.

Thankfully, there are enough aware people to overide those who blindly refuse to remve their blinkers.