Dire Jet Stream News

NPR is reporting today that the recent "wild weather" (sounds more like a party when they put it that way, don't you think?) in Colorado is tied to unusual activity in the Jet Stream.  Read the whole piece here.

Here's a recent image. Doesn't look like much of a party.

Courtesy money.cnn.com

Just a snippet from the manifesto...

Why, I suddenly wondered, is anyone talking about ANYTHING ELSE? 

The economy?  Very important, but irrelevant if we are sloshing around in toxic bilge water. Women’s rights?  So dear to my heart as to be almost the bones of me, and yet similarly irrelevant if we are re-re-re-re-building after the latest Super Storm or Horrific Wildfire.  Right to work legislation?  I've been practically a Wobbly since my Da indoctrinated me as Union Forever when I was knee-high to a tadpole, but that issue pales in comparison to the possibility that, if we don't do something NOW, the American West is going to be uninhabitable: 114 degrees in the shade with raging, unquenchable wildfires.  Poverty?  Poverty now isn't a patch on what we'll see if we don't stop or reverse climate change now.

Here's a photo from ABC Action news.  Google search was "aftermath of superstorm Sandy."

And in fewer years than I care to think, an appropriate caption might be "Clear day, view of my lovely back yard!"

SninkyPoo

That's me, on the Twitter machine that all the young kids are using today.  Now we'll see if I can get my HairOnFirePeople blogging act together!!!!!!

Do you hear the klaxons sounding??!!

Nope.  Me neither.  But there was this piece on Huffington Post this morning, announcing that there's a LAKE AT THE NORTH POLE.

I find that moderately horrifying.  Anyone else?

Here's a photo that I grabbed from mss.com/earthmatters.  It clearly shows a shimmering lake, high atop our lovely planet, where only ice should be.

MILLIONS

When a piece on Alternet references "The Day the Earth Stood Still," we should all be FREAKING OUT.

And we're not.

Just sayin'.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Interesting piece over at the Tork Better Business Center.

I was raised by parents who lived by the rule "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."  My Da actually made a big deal of how many squares of toilet paper to use!  Most likely this was to do with money - a hangover from being raised during the Great Depression - but as the 70s dawned and my Mama got the "Earth Day" religion, the emphasis was placed more and more on "saving the Earth," as we said back then.

So I am a scrimper and a saver.  I wash my plastic bags, and re-use twist ties, and store leftovers in old pasta sauce jars, and in general drive my husband crazy with old yogurt cartons falling out of the cupboards and paper towels left carefully to dry on the edge of the sink.  (Not the ones that have wiped up chicken juices.  I am frugal, not disgusting!)


Lately, I have been thinking that sweeping, people-driven, government-led/legislated action is the only realistic and viable way to tackle climate change.  But the small stuff has to happen, too.  Tiny changes, summed over large numbers, can produce big results.  I've known that all along, but have lost sight of it.  Have you?

Bassett, Iowa

Draft National Climate Assessment!

Here it is!  This is the draft report that, over at Mother Jones, Chris Mooney seems to think will kick the average American's butt into High Scared Gear about climate change.

Me?  I am not so sanguine.  I hate to sound like Jeremy Clarkson (who, when asked if he'd ever met an American named Jeremy, retorted, "No, it's too complicated - there's three syllables) but I think it needs to come with pictures and simple examples.  I doubt one in fifty Americans will even hear about the report, much less navigate to it, click the proper links and read - really READ - what's contained therein.

And frankly, we mostly don't know enough science to really grok what the report lays out.  Ask the average American what a 10 degree annual temperature rise will do to the climate, and they're likely to answer that it will just make things nice and summery, and ooh! they do wish they were in Florida right now.

I know I sound crabby.  I am crabby.  I am the person you are referring to when you say "Oh ye of little faith."

Folks - if we don't do something now, ONE OF THESE IS YOUR CAR: