writeaboutwarming

February 11, 2013 - It's time to put it in writing: I've had a lifelong love affair with the Scandinavians. Oh, don't be shocked - they don't even know about it. They're completely innocent. What else, though, can a person do? First there are the Danes, the happiest people in the world. They don't go around bragging about it, the way we would. They're too busy having a great time! Next come the Swedes, perfectly content with their amazing social welfare system and its cradle-to-grave healthcare and education benefits, all paid for by their government. Not that I intend to write about either of these nations, however spectacularly pragmatic they may be. No, my heart skips a beat these days because of those rock-solid, straight-ahead Norwegians. Ogle, ogle, sigh, sigh. What did they do when the little South American country of Guyana came knocking on their door, asking them to foot the bill if Guyana agreed to halt deforestation? After thinking about it car...

October 24, 2011 - I learned last week of a speech, delivered to the U.S. Senate by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (what a name!) of Rhode Island the week before. The speech was about climate change, of all things. The senator, a member of the Democratic party, spoke very directly and pulled no punches. Rather than describe his speech, let me quote a small portion of it to you: " ... There is a wave of very justificable economic frustration that has swept through our Capitol. The problem is that some of the special interests - the polluters - have insinuated themselves into that wave, sort of like parasites that creep into the body of a host animal, and from there they are working terrible mischief. They are propagating two big lies. One is that environmental regulations are a burden to the economy and we need to lift those burdens to spur our economic recovery. The second is [that] the jury is still out on climate changes caused by carbon pollution, so we don't need to worry abou...