writeaboutwarming

April 9, 2012 - Roughly thirty years ago, I lived a little bit north of Dallas, Texas.  I'd been married for only a few years, and my husband had been offered a transfer with his then-employer.  We were given the choice of living in L.A. or Dallas.  Dallas was the winner, because we didn't think we could afford to live in Los Angeles (we were moving from the Chicago suburbs, which is where both of us grew up). Anyway, I found a job, and began carpooling with someone who lived up our way.  One day, on the drive into work, the conversation wandered to our memories of the first moon landing.  We shared our pride in the country's accomplishment, and talked about how moon exploration had affected life here on earth.  My co-worker then remarked, "That's unless you don't believe it ever happened."  I was at a loss for words, and probably said something like "huh?"  He went on to explain that his neighbor, a lady of advanced years, did no...

April 2, 2012 - When I started writing this blog three years ago, it was difficult to decide what to write about from week to week, largely because of the paucity of information available.  Fast forward three years, and such is no longer the case.  Though mainstream media are still mostly absent from the conversation (recognition here for ABC news, who is suddenly on board, probably for marketing reasons), the abundance of so-called "alternative media" means I no longer have to search high and low.  Take this week, for instance.  Several days ago, I thought I'd be writing about the wind farm planned for construction in Lake Erie.  I was momentarily distracted by a story about the military's intention (all branches) to figure climate change into their plans for the future, to which Congressional Republicans are, of course, opposed.  Then I was almost lured into giving attention to the increased fire risk found throughout the United States. These ...

March 15 – Climate change denial has become the story. So much so that I decided it deserved an article all its own. Here’s an example of the kind of behavior deniers indulge in lately: “Please accept our apologies if you have experienced difficulty accessing the Ecologist site in the last few days. The site was the subject of attack that meant many of you may have received messages warning you not to visit our pages.We believe we have resolved the issue, although you may have still seen warning messages as late as yesterday because old copies of web pages are often temporarily stored on servers and personal computers. We are still running tests on the site and we hope to resume a normal service very shortly. Thanks for bearing with us, Mark Anslow, Editor “ (I received this message in my email on March 12.) When deniers leave messages at blogs, they often contain sarcastic and/or foul language. I’m not saying non-deniers are better behaved in that department. Both groups have l...