Happy New Year 2008 Well Happy New Year. We're back to the "old grind" and I now have time to post here. Several things happened worth comments, let's see if I can remember them all (I doubt it).

#1 - Fred Thompson only wants to be POTUS to serve his country. Seems to me that is exactly the kind of person we want. I don't want somebody who's life dream is to be POTUS. That eliminates all those other guys (and gal). They all have either been working towards this for years or suddenly found themselves in position where others thought they could use them in office. No thanks. I'm even more firmly for Fred.

#2 - Was watching a show called "Fearless Planet" and was struck by an inconsistency of logic one used to see only with religious fanatics. You see, after hours of reviewing the planet's history of heating and cooling independent of the existence of humans, the show suddenly veered into blaming the end of the last ice age on humans and Alaska's retreating glaciers on humans as if we could reverse things. This at the same time as showing snow on the side of an active volcano and a woman skiing down said mountain in the middle of the Bering Sea.

Now, there's even doubt that there is in fact a global temp rise but these folks think we can change it. We weren't even here the last time it got hotter (or colder)...

#3 - The writer's strike is working against them. My family is watching less and less TV. We should be completely weaned from it, even nightly news, by the end of January.

#4 - I no longer care about New Year's Day except as a notation of the passage of time. I doubt that I will ever stay up to midnight again (unless I'm on duty or staying up with a sick relative).

#5 - My mother has Alzheimer's. It is a terrible disease that takes one's life away before taking one's physical ability to enjoy life. Already (and we're probably 2-3 years into the onset of this disease based on hindsight's view of the clues), my mother doesn't know her own daughter, deceased son, late husband, parents, grandparents, and sometimes doesn't recognize the outside of her own home. She can't recall the past with any degree of certainty. Not moments ago, not years ago, not at all. Former conventions of life are beyond her understanding but she is still instinctively respectful towards people. Some days she isn't sure who I am and I see her EVERY day and for several hours. I am reminded of the poem, "To an Athlete Dying Young" by A. E. Housman

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers 5
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

Mom did a lot of things and did them well. She was a good and loyal friend and still is despite not really recognizing friends when she sees them. Her friends are many and they are still in contact after 56 years. She believed in hard work and doing to the best of your ability everything you tried. She still does, but now she's not so sure why. She has been a good and faithful daughter, mother, wife, student, teacher, researcher, cave guide, shop owner, cancer patient, archaeologist, and care giver. Her life has made this world a better place for many. She has run a good race, has devoted fans and deserves better. We've a ways to go, I'm hoping that I'm good enough that I'll remember all this and not the difficulties and frustrations of working with her as she is now.

And so the new year comes and nothing seems quite as important as family. I have only one resolution, to do the best I can.

Labels: Family, GlobalClimateChange, Politics

  ¶ posted by The Editor 12:03 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Global Warming, A Thought The global climate has warmed (hence forests under what are now ice sheets) and cooled (hence ice sheets over what were forests) several times without any notable interference from man. It can be presumed that other things such as solar activity, water currents in the oceans, and volcanic activity were the primary agents of that change. It could be that impact with extraterrestial bodies also had an influence on such climate changes. We're still puzzling that out.

I should note that I'll be making a couple of assumptions for the purpose of expounding on my thought. The first is that the global climate is actually warming not just changing dependent on region. The second is that man still has relatively little impact (which is more demonstrable based on the examples of "catastrophic" climate change previously noted).

So, assuming that we are undergoing climate warming and we can't "fix" it, why are we wasting time and resources trying to fix it and thus enriching (in the short term) corporations or empowering (again, in the short term) individuals who are selling us their fix? Why are we not producing adaptive technologies such as wheat that will grow in drier, hotter climates or housing that will protect us from heat without using massive amounts of energy or the means to recycle water endlessly on a massive scale for millions of people? Is it perhaps because most politicians, media types and energy companies care only for their short term condition? Just thinking...

Labels: Culture, GlobalClimateChange

  ¶ posted by The Editor 7:09 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Climate Change - The Debate Continues

Delaware global warming skeptic stands pat
State climatologist on opposite side of governor in court case
By JEFF MONTGOMERY, The News Journal
Posted Thursday, February 1, 2007

Delaware's state climatologist David R. Legates
Delaware's state climatologist has found himself in the middle of a political squall after taking skeptical stands on global warming and climate change -- in one case directly contradicting the state's own policy.

David R. Legates, a University of Delaware geography professor, co-wrote a "friend of the court" brief that opposed Delaware's position in a multi-state U.S. Supreme Court case.

In the appeal, state regulators argued that carbon dioxide from new cars should be regulated because of evidence the gas was contributing to rising global temperatures, climate shifts and changes in the environment. The Bush administration and industry critics opposed the demand, saying the dire warnings are unproven.

Enter Legates, a Ph.D. climatologist who received the title of state climatologist in 2005 from Daniel Leathers, now the head of the University of Delaware's geography department.

Legates joined a group of scientists late last year in urging the court to reject the state claims, in a brief filed by the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute.

"It is simply impossible to conclude that the net effect of greenhouse gases endangers human health and welfare," the brief said.

The institute has sued the government in the past to block some fuel economy standards for automobiles.

Two sides of the coin

The appearance of Delaware's climatologist on the other side of the court case left some state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control officials frustrated.

"He's taken a position that 'The climate is changing, but we don't have any danger signs,' " said Ali Mirzakhalili, air quality management chief for DNREC.

Recently branded "a favorite scientist of the global warming denial machine" by one national environmental group, Legates said he was following scientific evidence in arguing the institute's position in the court case. He has taken similar positions dating back to at least 1998, while a professor at Louisiana State University.

"The science brought in by the one side had given a more extremist view of climate change," Legates said. "What we're trying to say is, the science isn't necessarily that well settled, and in many cases it isn't that extreme. I'm not saying it isn't a problem."

As state climatologist, a position the state doesn't fund, Legates collects and shares climate data with the National Climatic Data Center, the Northeast Regional Climate Center and the National Weather Service office in Mt. Holly, N.J. Similar positions exist in 41 other states and Puerto Rico, generally staffed by state employees or university staffers.

"I don't think the doctor [Legates] speaks for the state's position," said Philip Cherry, a DNREC administrator who recently invited Legates to address agency employees. "I think the governor speaks for the state's position."

Delaware has accepted the view human activities contribute to global warming, and changes are needed to curb risks of sea level rise and climate change. The state adopted a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2000.

An updated report on global warming and its consequences by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due Friday, is expected to include forecasts of rising sea levels and changing weather and climate conditions worldwide.

Legates disputes warnings

Federal scientists have long warned that sea-level increases could be most pronounced along the mid-Atlantic, including the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay.

Some forecasts have predicted that Delaware could lose 50 percent or more of its tidal wetlands under worst-case scenarios.

But during a presentation sponsored by the conservative Heritage Foundation last year, Legates said, "This has become climate alarmism."

Then in early 2006, the National Policy Research Center, a conservative think tank, published a paper by Legates saying science "does not support claims of drastic increases in global temperatures over the 21st century, nor does it support claims of human influence on weather events and other secondary effects of climate change."

NPRC listed Legates as an adjunct scholar at the time the paper was released, as well as director of the University of Delaware's Climatic Research Center.

In 2003 Legates was called to testify in the U.S. Senate by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, a global warming skeptic prone to talk of "debunking" scientific climate change conclusions that are now widely accepted.

During that testimony Legates disputed findings of the international panel, saying researchers failed to prove recent warming trends or that human causes are "the only significant factor."

Wilmington resident Chad Tolman, a retired DuPont Co. research scientist who held positions with the National Academy of Sciences, said Legates' position clashed awkwardly with most Delaware scientists.

"I just don't know how, in the face of all the evidence, [he] maintains [his] position," Tolman said.

Cherry, who is managing Delaware's efforts with other states to cap regional greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, said Legates was free to take a stand that contradicts Delaware.

"But I have to say he's in the very small minority," Cherry said.

Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com.

Labels: GlobalClimateChange

  ¶ posted by The Editor 3:57 PM Links to this post