Managed to take Angel for a walk today. Other than that, it's been rest and reading and watching endless amounts of nerdy TV. Still fighting the mother of all respiratory infections here in the Foothills.
Note to self: bring vitamins on my next backpacking trip.
From all this reading and watching Cspan, what has become clear to me is just how much "push back" there is in the Tea Party against any sort of Climate Change science. Voting for these populist pipsqueaks is essentially a vote against science, Darwin, James Hansen and rationality. And here in California, Prop 23 is an attempt to extinguish our State's timid climate legislation (which attempts to roll back carbon to 1990 levels by 2020). Even that small amount of cutback is seen as a "jobs killer". The main funders of this Initiative are oil companies and it was written by our very own State Assemblyman: Dan Logue.
So I re-read McKibben's "Eaarth" last night. Not a cheery read.
Frankly, I don't think anybody on the Climate Denier Side has stepped out their front doors in the last twenty years. Nor have they noticed that things just ain't normal when it comes to weather patterns or flowering flora (last year I saw my first Mustard plant in November--two to three months ahead of schedule). Nor do they notice that grain production peaked in the 1980's. They haven't noticed all the bugs that are chewing up our forests because winter doesn't kill the little critters off anymore (the latest disaster is a new beetle from Asia that now threatens the Bristlecone Pine--the oldest trees in the world). Nor do they notice that the Midwest has extensive floods nearly every year now (and in August and September!). Almost all the glaciers are gone in Glacier National Park and you can sail your way through the Northwest Passage in Canada during the summer (the first time in 2006 and every year since then). Walrus are starving on islands in Alaska at this very moment. Black Abalone on California's coast are now on the Endangered Species List because the ocean has become too acidic for their shells. The acid is created from the absorption of CO2, lowering the Ocean's PH level and endangering coral reefs and shell fish. Pakistan has 20 percent of their land under water. River flow in almost all the world's rivers has diminished as glacier melt water has diminished. The list is endless.
Climate has become much more dangerous. Storms are stronger. Disasters are bigger and will continue to be very expensive. None of these costs are in anyone's budgets. Washed out roads, destroyed and flooded houses costs lots and lots of money. And it is becoming much more frequent.
Yet our own Dan Logue does his own little Paleo Republican Schtick that lowering CO2 is just too expensive. If he thinks this is expensive, just wait until the first grain harvest fails because of drought. To not act is the expensive part.
Note to self: bring vitamins on my next backpacking trip.
From all this reading and watching Cspan, what has become clear to me is just how much "push back" there is in the Tea Party against any sort of Climate Change science. Voting for these populist pipsqueaks is essentially a vote against science, Darwin, James Hansen and rationality. And here in California, Prop 23 is an attempt to extinguish our State's timid climate legislation (which attempts to roll back carbon to 1990 levels by 2020). Even that small amount of cutback is seen as a "jobs killer". The main funders of this Initiative are oil companies and it was written by our very own State Assemblyman: Dan Logue.
So I re-read McKibben's "Eaarth" last night. Not a cheery read.
Frankly, I don't think anybody on the Climate Denier Side has stepped out their front doors in the last twenty years. Nor have they noticed that things just ain't normal when it comes to weather patterns or flowering flora (last year I saw my first Mustard plant in November--two to three months ahead of schedule). Nor do they notice that grain production peaked in the 1980's. They haven't noticed all the bugs that are chewing up our forests because winter doesn't kill the little critters off anymore (the latest disaster is a new beetle from Asia that now threatens the Bristlecone Pine--the oldest trees in the world). Nor do they notice that the Midwest has extensive floods nearly every year now (and in August and September!). Almost all the glaciers are gone in Glacier National Park and you can sail your way through the Northwest Passage in Canada during the summer (the first time in 2006 and every year since then). Walrus are starving on islands in Alaska at this very moment. Black Abalone on California's coast are now on the Endangered Species List because the ocean has become too acidic for their shells. The acid is created from the absorption of CO2, lowering the Ocean's PH level and endangering coral reefs and shell fish. Pakistan has 20 percent of their land under water. River flow in almost all the world's rivers has diminished as glacier melt water has diminished. The list is endless.
Climate has become much more dangerous. Storms are stronger. Disasters are bigger and will continue to be very expensive. None of these costs are in anyone's budgets. Washed out roads, destroyed and flooded houses costs lots and lots of money. And it is becoming much more frequent.
Yet our own Dan Logue does his own little Paleo Republican Schtick that lowering CO2 is just too expensive. If he thinks this is expensive, just wait until the first grain harvest fails because of drought. To not act is the expensive part.
