Disappearing Islands and Banned Shrubbery

Some people I've debated with over the issue of Global Warming think the whole thing is a myth; they think it's all a bunch of hooey and that the changes in weather patterns worldwide are normal.

In the 1989 film Erik the Viking, a character by the name of King Arnulf (played by the movie's director Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame) of the island nation of Hy-Brasil, continues to deny his realm is sinking into the sea even as the waves are closing over his head. That's an apt description for what the Global Warming deniers are doing. Only they aren't in the process of sinking into the rising ocean -- yet.

But as reported in The Idependent this weekend, whole islands are in fact being claimed by rising ocean levels.

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

Pretty scary opening, huh? Sounds like the stuff of alarmists "overreacting," right? But wait, there's more:

It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.

This is not laughing matter. Another quote from the article:

Refugees from the vanished Lohachara island and the disappearing Ghoramara island have fled to Sagar, but this island has already lost 7,500 acres of land to the sea. In all, a dozen islands, home to 70,000 people, are in danger of being submerged by the rising seas.

This is happening now, dear readers. These islands aren't disappearing in some far off future. They're being swallowed up now. We have a choice; we can acknowledge the problem of Global Warming once and for all, and do something about it, or we can become like King Arnulf, willfully and stupidly oblivious to the waters claiming his nation.

In other news, GlobalResearch.ca is reporting that George W. Bush has been banned from visiting the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. According to the website:

BETHLEHEM, April 01, 2003 (Online): The Church of Nativity, widely believed to be the birth-place of Jesus Christ, decided to ban entry each of the US President George Bush, his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Foreign Secretary Jack Straw the privilege of visiting this sacred place, which is one of the holiest Christian shrines.

The move came in protest of "the aggressive war these leaders have waged against Iraq," top Clergy of the church said.

Pretty harsh, huh? But again, there's more:

The Church Parishioner Father Panaritius made the decision public at a massive protest demonstration organized by Orthodox institutions in front of the Church of Nativity."They are war criminals and murderers of children. Therefore the Church of Nativity decided to ban them access into the holy shrine for ever," the parishioner said.

This happened nearly four years ago, but I just learned about it today -- the day after Christmas, the day thought to be the birthday of Jesus Christ. Considering that Bush falsely holds himself to be a Christian, this is a pretty sharp repudiation of the boy. I'm actually surprised this fact doesn't seem to have ever gotten more press in the mainstream media. Then again, given its timidity, maybe I'm not as surprised as I perhaps should be.

You just know you and your agenda are fucked when even God turns His back on you. Hey, Shrubya! Did you consider that maybe the Democratic victory this year might have been a sign from the God you pretend to worship? That maybe even He is through putting up with you and your crimes?