Update At I don't know who is right. I do know the climate has changed, and is continuing to change. The evidence is simple. As a small child, I grew up about 90 miles north of where I live now. An "average" winter there would regularly leave us with two and three feet of snow piled on the ground. I can remember a winter when I was very small when I climbed to the top of the pile of snow next to my parent's driveway in the first home I remember. The driveway was, at most, 40 feet long (I base this estimate on the fact that we were able to get my father's station wagon out of the garage, and one other vehicle could fit behind it with a few feet (maybe five feet total) behind that second vehicle and the road that ran past my parent's house). The snow cleared from this single-lane driveway, pile at the side of the driveway, allowed me to look down, from the top, onto my parent's black roof (yet another example of how times have changed - all of the snow melted from the top of the house). I can count at least three "blizzards of the century" storms in my lifetime - 1965, somewhere around 1972, and the Halloween Blizzard of 1990. Each of them was a storm of unusual proportions. I distinctly remember the early-seventies "blizzard of the century" because the snow had a very unusual dark layer about four inches down from the top - it seems that out west the winds were so strong they not only picked up the snow on the ground - they also picked up the dirt. So when I went to shovel, I found myself digging down through four inches of white snow, three inches of brown "snow" (it was mostly snow, with enough topsoil to make it distinctly brown), and another 27" of snow (yes, it was 34" at our house that time). I can remember playing "King of the hill" during recess at school. Back then, we didn't take our snowpants to school - we were at school to learn, recess was a chance for us (and probably the teachers) to blow off steam. It was a rare child who removed their shoes to put on boots - you didn't need to do that, because, well, it was silly. You merely needed overshoes to keep your feet dry. When the snowpack was fresh, light, and would stick to kids (and melt easily), we had "front recess" - we would play in a plowed parking lot. Two hundred-plus kids crammed into an area that wasn't big enough for three rows of cars parked side-by-side - we had enough room for two - with a wide center aisle. Snow from this parking lot (the main parking for our church/school) was piled at one end, and became our "hill". On a number of occasions, I could climb to the top of the hill and look down at the roof of the school. Granted, the building was slab-on-grade and all but the lunchroom of the school was 10 foot ceilings, but still - being able to see the aggregate on the roof of the building was ... intriguing. Usually too much so, and I was quickly deposed from my Kingship, and sent packing back down the mountain - where I typically belonged. As a child, the typical outdoor winter experience was wading through snow. Walking through hip-deep snow was a consistent and tiring experience. February was usually best, though. We would get plenty of snow in November and December. January would typically be cold - with an annual "January Thaw" that would bring shirt-sleeve (albeit January in Minnesota shirtsleeve - typically upper thirties and low forties) temperatures. This was great when you had two or three feet of snow on the ground. It would cause a crust to form on top of the snow. Sometimes this crust would be augmented by rain that would fall - and freeze on top of the snow. It was rare, but once in a while you could walk on the crust of the snow, rather than wading through it. When I was a child, my friends and I would not call it "winter" until you could not see the weeds in the ditch. That was the uniform break from Fall to Winter. If you could still see the tops of the weeds in the ditch, you were probably still waiting for the big fall storms to kick in. It seems silly now, but I used to enjoy the uniform whiteness of the landscape. It was dazzling in the sunlight, and somehow seemed to be wrapped - like a Christmas Present - you couldn't open it until the spring, when a whole new - or old - world would be revealed. You would find many of the things you lost, your sandbox would once again appear, and life would return to "normal". Our "average snowfall" in St. Cloud - and through much of the state (except for the north shore of Lake Superior) was around five feet annually. Sure, much of it melted or compacted, but if you go by the standard of the time, which was ten inches of snow meant an inch of moisture, that meant that the entire state of Minnesota was, on average, covered with six inches of water, that was a lot of moisture. And there were years where there were a lot more than five feet. I remember snow drifts that ran a ridge to the roof of our house. I can remember having to dig out the mailbox - from the front, not from the top. I can remember snow forts we would make simply by hollowing out part of the ridge the county plow left when clearing the road that fed our driveway. I've been in my house for five years now. Only one winter was close to my childhood idea of "normal" - and that was our first full winter here. Now, my children think of a heavy blanket of snow being ankle-deep - not waist deep like I did. I don't know who is right on climate change. I do know that the climate has changed, and that we, as a species, has done more to put more material into the atmosphere in the last hundred years than any other species - ever. Dinosaur farts weren't the end of the Dinosaurs - no matter how much Mrs. Dinosaur might complain about old Rexy fluffing the fauna with one of his patented uber-nasty three-day-old triceratops farts. And let's be brutally honest - those people in the third world who are burning wood, coal, or whatever to stay warm and cook their dinners have few other choices for cooking and heat. We here in the developed world can make a few different choices. Sure, they will be more expensive for us - and yes, the bottom line is that we might have some changes in our economy because of it. I, for one, would much rather know I did something positive than sit here knowing that my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren may experience a lower standard of living, more diseases and malnutrition, and have more problems than we did because we sat here arguing whether or not we should do something. There's an old line : To those that have been given much, much is expected of them. Time we started living up to that end of the bargain. Because if we don't, no one will - and if no one does, we all lose. This isn't time for "play my way or I'll take my ball and go home" politics. Because it's not "I'll take my ball and go home" - it's "I'll padlock the stadium gates, and you players, spectators, and all the rest will die when I set fire to the place, since I've already soaked it in gasoline..." And that's just plain dumb.
[Link] |
Update At
[Link] |
Update At
[Link] |
Update At At the moment, I've got three projects running hot and heavy at work. Two are complete - to a point. The third is just starting. The two complete ones don't do what you expect. I have queries in to tech support to figure out why. I don't know the software I'm using half as well as I would like, and I know that is part of my frustration. A bigger part is that, when I do everything the way I'm told to do it, the software doesn't work anyway. So there's very little point in telling you all of those details. At the moment, there's at least one serious bug working it's way up the food chain that I've discovered, and another which may or may not end up being a problem. So as far as mental energy goes, I have less of that than I would like. But then again, that's kind of a universal.
[Link] |
Update At
[Link] |
Update At
[Link] |
Update At
[Link] |
My Links:
2007 Calendar
Daynoters
FAQ
Links
Hosted By...
|
Where I Go:
Non-RSS
Orb Designs
Chaos Manor
Timesink
Silicon Patch
Digital Choke
APOD
Where I Go:
RSS
CNN
Misc. Ramblings
Phil's Diary
The Bitch Troll
Silicon Underground
Al Hawkins
Swamp Gas
Sauced Goose
WWDN
Dr. Chef
This is not a Web 4.0 site - nor 3.0, nor 2.0 - hell, it's barely 1.0. It is static HTML code, written and refined by hand using the internet-age equivalent of bone hammers and flint knives - the venerable WordPad under Windows and Firefox (that's at least a 2.0 release, actually). So no, there are no nifty-shifty whiz-bang things here. Frankly, there's only the written word, written (mostly) by me, of things that occur to me, or thoughts I occasionally (and some will say allegedly) have, and when it's fiction, I shall be sure to alert you as such. Other than that, I shall simply inform you that here, content is King. I've been doing this not as long as some, longer than others, and, as some long-time readers will tell you, I regularly and consistently piss people off, irritate them, and expose my ignorances for all the world to see. This is me, this is who I am, and this is why I put myself here - to see if it is possible for me to ... improve mine own self, as it were, since evolution is most assuredly done with me. With that said, on to the more standard verbage - I presume we're all adults - or at least fairly mature beings - here. The opinions contained herein are mine, wholly, and do not represent those of any organization, group, or other collective of other beings / people / things / whatchamacallits to which I belong, am associated, or appear to endorse. Truth is, folks, I am one of those square pegs constantly being smashed into roundish holes. Unfortunately for me - unfortunately, for the holes, as well, as I am often more akin to the granite that comes from where I grew up than something more malleable and ... well, workable. I have sharp edges, which are, regrettably at times, revealed here. Given that I am a unique individual, and that I am a collection of opinions and such, it must be noted that you are hereby legally provided notice that you can't blame those organizations for my thoughts. Unless I'm running such an organization (which, I assure you, is utterly unlikely - I much prefer to organize and work behind the lines), those groups should not be blamed for my jerkisms. However, feel free to take your frustrations with those opinions out on me, and leave the rest of the world alone. If you do e-mail me, I freely reserve the right to publish your e-mail if I choose, ignore it at my peril, or, in certain cases of gross stupidity or clear evidence of serious colo-rectal inversion (that's head in your butt for those of you without bigger dictionaries), add you to my kill file. Please do not take it personally, nor as a sign of your unique value to my world - my kill file is not exactly empty. You would, in fact, be joining a wonderful group (according to them) of people who dislike me and/or my opinions. We differ in that particular. As any sane being would. You have been warned. And Thank You for visiting.