Posted on 03/14/2007 4:01:18 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Hey, Chicagoans, how would you like to live in the Miami of the Midwest? All you gotta do is stay put! Climate-wise, in 50 years, maybe less, Chicago could be what Miami is now -- minus the proximity to Havana, of course, and minus the fact a good part of South Florida might be under water. Forget January snowball fights in Grant Park.
How about spring-break water skiing on Lake Michigan?
How about Christmas margaritas outdoors?
By now, you've heard of global warming.
I'm guessing the only people who don't think the condition is real and largely man-created are right-wing loon Ann Coulter -- whose little black dress will give way to a little black bikini with temperature increase -- and flat-earth societies.
Sports Illustrated, not exactly a scientific journal, just used a doctored photo on its cover of Florida Marlins pitcher Dontrelle Willis standing on the pitcher's mound at Dolphin Stadium in Miami, thigh-deep in water.
''SPORTS AND GLOBAL WARMING,'' the headline reads. ''As the Planet Changes, So Do the Games We Play -- Time to Pay Attention.''
Ya think?
Ice caps that have been around for millennia are melting swiftly.
The ocean is expected to rise anywhere from a minimum of 4 inches to 3 feet by 2100.
If that doesn't sound like much, consider that 4 inches would imperil many of our Eastern beach areas, and 3 feet would, according to the April cover story in The Atlantic, threaten the survival of countries from Bangladesh to the Netherlands, ''while submerging pretty much all of the world's trendy beach destinations to boot.''
SI lists 13 ballparks and arenas -- from San Francisco to Jacksonville, Fla., from Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., to Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. -- that will be under water with a 1-meter sea-level rise.
In its quaint, sports-focused way, SI neglects to mention that the host cities will be swamped, too.
The heck with South Beach -- come visit our South Shore!
The future, and the present You see, fresh water -- and 20 percent of the earth's drinkable supply resides in our Great Lakes -- will not increase in the future, except from torrential rains, floods and unusable dumpings over the ocean. Lake Michigan and her sisters will shine like a glorious liquid treasure more precious than oil as hundreds of millions of world inhabitants beg for more water, some of them no farther away than Phoenix and Las Vegas.
All this climate turbulence -- or at least the vast majority of it -- is being caused by us humans, who have been burning fossil fuels and polluting the atmosphere at an increasing rate since the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700s.
This isn't about blame or politics.
Who of us voted the Oscar to Al Gore?
I like my gas-guzzling SUV, air-conditioned house and belching barbecue grill as much as anybody.
But whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, a fascist or a Commie, it doesn't matter now because, as the apolitical Sports Illustrated points out, ''global warming is by definition global. Every organism on the planet is already feeling its impact.''
For once, we all are truly in this together.
So as we realize that it's high time to do something about our treatment of this little planet, we also should be aware of the things that are already happening because of global warming, things that will affect us as we deal with the problem.
Animals and plants are migrating, and local climates are transforming regions into new places with new identities.
This isn't a good time to open a ski slope, for instance, as snowfall is lessening and seven World Cup skiing events had to be canceled in Europe this season because of warming.
''Winter in Vermont is now the equivalent of winter in Rhode Island,'' Sports Illustrated notes.
People should be wary of ice fishing in Wisconsin, and woe unto the high school football players who must struggle through two-a-days in places such as Texas and Louisiana, where summers are becoming like Indonesia's.
Any silver linings? It might be a good time for butterfly collectors, perhaps, for those who get to chase species in northern latitudes where the insects never have been before. But it's tougher if you don't like marching fire ants or emerald ash borers, which already have moved far enough north to threaten the Adirondack ash trees that produce the baseball bats for our major leagues.
It's not all certain doom and gloom, mind you.
Things such as expanded growing seasons and lowered heating bills can be short-term pluses.
Indeed, parts of Greenland now are open to cultivation two weeks longer than in the 1970s, and imagine what that once-desolate mini-continent might become.
But the time has arrived to think about the things we need, as opposed to the things we want, and to ponder the things we do for amusement, compared with the precious things we must bequeath our descendants.
Our planet, our species, needs a sporting chance.
Letters to our sports columnists appear Sunday. Send e-mail to inbox@suntimes.com. Include your full name, hometown and a daytime phone number.
mailto:rtelander@suntimes.com
Duuh...'cause he's a freakin' MORON?
--No, no, no.....it was Buffalo farts--
Then it was a GOOD thing we killed all those bison, right?
They've BEEN melting for the past 15,000 years - ever since the last Ice Age ended.
And yes, they are melting faster. Of course they are - they are smaller.
Ever watch an ice cube melt? Slowly at first, but when it gets to be a very small chunk, it melts much faster.
Duh.
I'm glad they have this narrowed down.
This is what happens when you get all of your scientific information from Professor Al Gore.
What kind of cultivation are they talking about?
I was in Greenland 1951-1956, 2 years on Station Nord = less than 400 miles from the North Pole. 2 years on the southern most part of Greenland at Prins Christianssund radio Station (Cape Farewell). 1 Year in Holsteinsborg, in the middle part of Greenland.
I like for those liars to tell me what kind of cultivation there is or ever have been in Greenland, because I NEVER saw any of it!
Maybe it is a good thing that Chicago becomes like Miami, so that we here in Miami can get back our roads again, when all the "Snowbirds" don't need to come down here and make our roads like parking lots!!!
What a tool!
WE'RE DOOOOOOOOMED.
.
Sounds like some "FAGGOT" wrote this sh!t.
This is why I don't regard sports commentators highly.
Here's a challenge that I use:
Take any of the computer models being used to forecast climactic changes in the future and ^run it backwards^ to say, the Great Lakes region, May 30, 1650 AD.
Does it precisely (within +/- 0.05 C) predict the recorded temperature for that day?
(That large "POP!" you hear is the gorites head exploding.)
Rick Telander is about as ignorant about science as he is about sports. He is one of the most ignorant writers out there (especially about sports). Needs to be fired.
Climate models are not intended to be used for either forecasts or hindcasts of daily weather variability. Climate models and weather models are two different things entirely.
My point exactly.
Yet, gorites use the end results of these models to "prove" anthropogenic catastrophic climate change. My cahllenge is intended to show that science requires repeatability based in data not emotionalism.
Imagine, instead of Canadians flocking to Florida for the summer, Floridians will be moving to Canada.
Perhaps a good long term investment would be retirement homes in Ontario.
'GLOBAL WARMING' MEETS JOCKO HOMO'
Misleading caption. This has nothing to do with DEVO.
Still fitting.
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