writeaboutwarming

April 15, 2013 - Bill McKibben’s brilliant article in the Rolling Stone of April 11 was not just thought provoking, it was right on target.   Entitled “The Fossil Fuel Resistance,” McKibben details why the laughter of oil industry barons rings a bit hollow these days.   There’s so much good information to be found in McKibben’s latest call-to-arms, I’m going to give it the fine-tooth comb treatment it deserves. “My philosophy is to make money.”   Rex Tillerson’s obscenely redundant declaration followed his announced intention, as CEO of ExxonMobil, to more than double the acreage over which his company is exploring for fossil fuel.   (Isn’t there something about that word “fossil” that’s just so inadvertently accurate, that describes Tillerson and his fellow old-white-guys-who- honor-the-almighty-dollar-more-than-their-mothers with an achingly awful degree of precision?)   He elaborated contemptuously that renewable energy would account for just one percen...

February 14, 2011 – I’m continually fascinated by the invisible barrier that has, seemingly, been erected between peak oil and climate change. Peak oilers give c.c. a barely discernible nod from time to time, but no more. They apparently pride themselves upon declining to “unnecessarily” (!) complicate matters by attempting to take all the known facts into consideration. This purity of intent apparently sets the facts they are willing to acknowledge on a VERY high plane, indeed. However, as uniquely suited as the human brain is to examining complicated issues in all their subtlety, and as simultaneously pressing as matters have become, the failure to take both crises into account amounts to moral culpability. Of course humans will allow bias to enter into their evaluation! While we wait for that attribute to correct itself, glaciers are melting, methane is entering the atmosphere, and the Amazon is dying. Time is of the essence, ladies and gentlemen! Marshall your spreadsheets ...

February 2, 2011 – Cyclone Yasi is raking the northeastern coast of Australia with wind gusts of 183 miles per hour. Rainfall accompanying this storm is predicted to amount to 28 inches. A blizzard stretching from New Mexico to New England is wending its way toward the Northeast, after dumping in excess of two feet of snow in some locations, an inch of ice in others. Meteorologists are warily eyeing a gathering storm in the southwestern United States which may well deliver a second body blow to the middle of the country next week. Elsewhere, Europe has endured blizzards of its own this winter. Twenty-eight thousand people in England have died so far because of hypothermia – my guess is they were members of the underclass who couldn’t afford heat. Temperatures in the Arctic have been on the plus side of average by 40 degrees Fahrenheit, thereby pushing cold temperatures further south for a second time, last year having been the first. Flooding is rampant in Australia, Sri Lanka, Colombi...

January 3, 2011 – Here’s wishing you a very Happy New Year! It promises to be an eventful one, that’s for sure. Let’s take a look at items in the news. “Blizzard is ‘Budget Buster’ for Cities” – This is why it would have made a lot of sense not to waste money on wars that should never have been fought in the first place. This is why we need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan pronto. Cities up and down the East Coast were walloped first with snow, then cleaning up the snow, then paying for the cleanup. It was a dreadful December. Snow removal cost Danbury, CT $450K for just one storm. Apparently the fact that this major storm occurred on a Sunday made it hurt that much more: even NYC is having trouble forking out the overtime. Most cities had to put their entire public works departments out on the streets AND hire outside contractors, to boot. Cranston, RI, Ridgefield, CT, and Rahway, NJ, were all struggling to begin with, because of the recession. Big-time snow removal means no money f...