writeaboutwarming

August 19, 2013 – Back in the halcyon days of warnings about a far off event called climate change   (as opposed to   the actual occurrence of climate change, which is what we’re stuck with now), Americans were warned that if certain tendencies in the climate asserted themselves, they would encourage the climate’s unpredictability, thereby leading to more change.   When an action leads to results that reinforce the original action, a feedback loop has been established.   Say, for instance, that a student who dislikes school because he gets poor grades, decides that because of his disliking school he’d rather play soccer with friends than study for a test.   The consequences are quite predictable: because he doesn’t study for the test, he performs poorly on the test, leading to an even greater dislike of school.   That’s a feedback loop. In the early days, right after World War II, all that scientists knew was that the earth was warming.   Becaus...

June 11, 2012 - Do you ever play that game: which would be worse - a fire, or a flood?  Once something burns up, it's irretrievably lost.  With flooding, there's the possibility, however small, of saving things.  Fires are terribly polluting, and add a lot of carbon dioxide to the already overloaded atmosphere.  Dirty or polluted water could ruin a home or even a town. In the event that clean-up is possible, it's a labor intensive, dangerous job.  A home with smoke damage might be similarly hard work to clean up.  A home that's burned to the ground probably requires a bulldozer, once the surviving possessions have been sorted.  Insurance is available for both kinds of catastrophes.  In either case, nature is capable of repairing at least some of the local environmental damage.  The psychic, emotional, and physical toll on humans is another matter entirely. The cost of fires begins with the training of firefighters, and t...

December 23, 2010 – Climate disruption is becoming a reality for more and more people. It’s become a bit personal, too – my son is in Southern California. He flies out today, thank goodness. Here’s a brief rundown of what the Golden State has been contending with: · 17 feet of snow has fallen in the Sierra Nevada mountains · Some locations have received their entire annual rainfall · 20,000 homes are without power · Roads and bridges have been washed away · Mudslides are numerous because of wildfires that decimated vegetation on hillsides It remains to be seen whether and how the rest of the United States will be affected by this treacherous storm. Meanwhile, Western Europeans stand amazed as snow, ice and freezing temperatures bring airports and rail terminals to their knees. Millions of holiday travelers have been affected by the unusually harsh weather, with flight cancellations and long delays at rail terminals being the rule. Thousands have s...

June 28, 2010 – While the mid-section of the United States swelters, and Arizonan’s endure the resumption of the wildfire season, let’s take a pass on the self-pity and talk about folks with REAL problems. It’s off to southern China we go …. MSNBC.com carried a story dated June 23, filed by Reuters news service from Fuzhou , China . It began raining in southern China on June 13. Ten days later, provinces and regions hardest hit by calamitous rainfall include Fujian , Jiangxi , Hunan , Guangdong , Sichuan , Guizhou and Guangxi. All of these places have been on the receiving end of more than 39 inches of rain in “a few days” time, with more in the forecast. I’m unable to imagine that much rainfall, but I can comprehend the results: at least 211 people dead and 119 missing. Rivers have broken their banks, dykes have collapsed, landslides have severed road and rail links. Highways have crumbled. Two-and-a-half million people have been evacuated. Millions of acres ...