Freaky weather

Yesterday it was 63 degrees.
Today it's supposed to be 60.

in Boston.
in January.

This is getting very freaky. maybe it's time we actually watch this dvd which has been on our mantle for months

Comments

[howard lindzon]

Funny but it was 20 degrees colder in Phoenix than New York and Boston, and I walked off the course in the freezing rain. First time for everything..

Maybe everything is flipped and I will ski in Downtown Phoenix next year.

[Steve]

The desire to see cause and effect in chaos is one of the strongest core components of the human psyche, and arguably explains why organized religion evolved and retains such a strong grip on human society despite (because of?) the lack of any empirical evidence regarding the presence of a deity.

Frighteningly, this aspect of our chemistry or DNA or whatever now powers the urge to see every bad storm or period of odd-ball weather as somehow attributable to a new God -- global warming.

As you know from my previous writings, I believe global warming is occuring. But to turn it into a religion (or a "moral crusade" as Father Gore calls it) can only have painful and counterproductive results.

For example, if all we all do is go out and buy a new car, even a hybrid, we can be assured that environmental change will be far worse than if we keep our heads and take coordinated rational collective action.

Check it out for yourself: food supply livestock around the globe accounts for vastly more greenhouse gas emissions (methane, principally from bovine digestion) than from internal combustion engines in vehicles. Even more damaging is the continuing changover of the world's surface from wilderness (of any kind, pristine, picturesque or ugly and useless) into farmland. If we think global warming is really such a mortal threat to humankind (not to Nature, which couldn't care less) then we should focus on the subjects scientists do seem to agree on -- that, instead of going to toyota.com, people should figure out how to slow population growth in the third world (its already essentially stopped in the developed world -- the USA is growing only because of immigration and Europe and Russia are shrinking fast) or if thats too cruel, then how to feed 10 billion souls without livestock and modern agriculture.

[Steve]

good simple clear reading on how reflexive politics maybe dont really address environmental change:

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2062484.ece

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000385/index.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/07/ING95E1VQ71.DTL

[Vinit Bhansali]

What bothers me is why you didn't watch it earlier?

Was the fact that it was hyped by too many liberals keeping you away from it?

:)