Tuesday, December 31, 2013

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

See the thing is, we “liberals” have done a really pi$$ poor job of communicating about global anthropogenic climate change (GACC! What a hashtag!)

Now that there seems to be 95% agreement among reputable scientists that:

(a) it exists and 

(b) yes, it’s our fault and 

(c) we’ve got to DO SOMETHING – pronto – 

I believe it’s time for liberals to join forces with those who profess to be on the “other side of the aisle” and start working for change together.

Can you think of a more “conservative” value than preserving the weather, temperatures, ecosystems and coastline that we humans evolved in and enjoy? Can you think of a more conservative message than “save this, our traditional way of life?”

I can’t.

It’s essentially the message of the Tea Party, in fact, although what they posit as the “traditional way of life” is a weird, convenient fiction in which the founders of the USA were Christian fundamentalists in the Michele Bachmann mold, no one was gay or lesbian or transgendered, women and people of color knew their places, and White Guys ruled the Earth.

Still, the Tea Party is fighting HARD to save that way of life – they’ve got energy and gusto and verve and crazy eyes a’spinnin’ – and we liberals are talking to each other in the Twitter echo chamber about how stupid climate change deniers are rather than reaching across the aisle to make our case and harness some of that incredible energy!

First things first. I need to STOP it with the denigration of Republicans and conservatives. That way lies stalemate and deadlock. That way lies our failure to make a change to policy and practice soon enough to save the climate and ecosystems we cherish.


Climate Change Worse Than We Thought...

sez the Huffington Post, reporting on a piece in The Guardian reporting on a piece in Nature... and boy is this a doozy.  The clouds, it seems have turned against us!

What was it that Pooh said?

How sweet to be a cloud
Floating in the blue!
Every little cloud
Always sings aloud.

How sweet to be a cloud
Floating in the Blue!
It makes him very proud
To be a little cloud.


Alas, per Huff Po, "The research found that as the planet heats, fewer sunlight-reflecting clouds form, causing temperatures to rise further in an upward spiral."

Not so pretty now, eh?

Monday, December 30, 2013