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Burning the Candle at Both Ends? Global Warming and the End of Oil

After Santa Ana winds finally subsided, firefighters gained the upper hand on the LA fires that have scorched California this past week – although fires in San Diego continue. The death toll from the inferno has reached at least 8, as nearly 800 square miles have been burned in the past six days. President Bush declared the California wildfires, which ravaged the Santa Barbara foothills down to the Mexican border, a “major disaster.” Amy Luers, California’s climate manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said of the wildfires that “while we can’t attribute these specific events to global warming, these are consistent with a trend of increasing wildfire activity throughout the west that has been linked to climate.” She warned further that if global warming emissions are not cut, wildfires could significantly change the landscapes of the west. Democratic Presidential hopeful Chris Dodd criticized the Bush Administration by citing an over-extension of the National Guard in foreign wars as a cause of first responder shortages to emergencies such as the California wildfires. Protesters on Capitol Hill connected the Iraq war to global warming citing oil’s role in the conflict as well as its environment effects. Meanwhile, the German based “Energy Watch Group,” released a report concluding that global oil production already peaked last year. Analysts in the study forecast that current production levels will be halved by 2030 and predict that shortages will lead to societal unrest. The debate over the findings of the EWG comes at a time when oil prices reached record highs topping $90 dollars a barrel last week.

Thank you Gifts:

A Crude Awakening – DVD – $125
An Inconvenient Truth – DVD – $100
The End of Oil – DVD – $50
The Uprising Dollar-a-Day Peak Pack – $365