Tag: climate change

This is a follow-up to Retrofit Suburbia Redux

At Ezra Klein, in a post about The Costs of Cap and Trade, a commentator, “Black Political Analysis” frames the Auto-Uber-Alles position as:

I intuitively agree with your logic, which is correct government policy can move the markets in any particular direction. The real matter is at what points will Americans see increased regulation as better than the status quo. For now, Americans seem quite willing, not content, but willing to pay $4/gallon. The American desire to have the most liberty possible (i.e. the government not telling the people what to do) is quite high; so economic circumstances must be quite severe before Americans embrace your ideas (even though they are good ideas).

July 4, 2008 12:03 PM

I answer:

Except when it comes to regulations preventing a lot near a suburban transport stop from being redeveloped to ground floor professional or retail space with townhouses stacked on top … sacrificing liberty in that situation is done without a moment’s thought.

Cars are liberating if you are the one with the car and not too many other people have them in any given area. Either take away your car, or establish a system of government subsidy and regulation that ensures that everyone must ride a car to get anywhere, and the liberty vanishes.

Indeed, a freedom that rests on the lack of freedom of others is not what I write down under the heading of “liberty”.

Since 1995 the number of oceanic dead zones, masses of oxygen depleted water deadly to most marine life, has grown from 44 to 169. The International Whaling Commission reported that dead zones are killing the world’s coastlines, increasing by a third in the last two years.  

Mississippi flood waters, fouled with run off of sewage and fertilizer, are forecast to cause a record dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico later this summer.


By IWC

Both the National Hurricane Center and the Colorado State University forecast team founded by Dr. Bill Gray are forecasting above normal Atlantic  hurricane seasons. The NHC is predicting 12-16 named storms, 6-9 hurricanes, 2-5 major hurricanes and an “ACE” range 100%-210% of the median. CSU is predicting (PDF) 15 (avg. 9.6) named storms, 8 (avg. 5.9) hurricanes, 4 (avg. 2.3) intense hurricanes and a “NTC” 160% of average.

However, these forecasts don’t address the “mystery” of the missing oceanic heat that has now been found.

Climate models had predicted that the heat content of the oceans would rise faster than the data were showing. A recent correction of the data set revealed that sea levels and oceanic heat content were rising 50% faster than previously determined.

The oceans have been growing warmer and sea levels have been rising at a faster rate than previously estimated, researchers reported. A review of millions of measurements over the past four decades revealed a subtle error, they said; after correcting it, they found that sea levels rose two inches from 1961 to 2003 – about 50 percent greater than previous estimates. Experts familiar with the work said the finding, published in the journal Nature, added credence to computer simulations predicting centuries of rising seas from human-caused global warming.

Also in Blue at BlueNC.

Howdy, buckaroos. Finally got some time here, after way too long. Got a little hail and snow the other morning, been a chilly spring. Thought I would ramble on a little about this here planet we got, and climate, and energy.

The sun is for the most part blank. Only a small magnetic signature remains from the small sunspot that formed.

Excerpted by permission from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST:

2008 has seen a record outbreak of tornadoes in the United States from California to the Midwest, from the South through the central plains, to the Appalachian states.

In January, THE ENVIRONMENTALIST reported the University of East Anglia’s prediction for a strong 2008 La Niña event.

“The assessment for 2008 is that there will be a “strong La Niña” event in the Pacific, which will limit the warming trend for the year (whilst still being one of the warmest years).”

The La Niña phenomenon is an upwelling of colder waters resulting in a change in ocean temperature that causes a shift in the jet stream, reducing corresponding climate temperature. While this NOAA study from October, 1999, still referenced on their site, which uses data from 1950 through 1996, concluded there was no tornadic connection to the El Niño/La Niña event, Joseph Schaefer, Director of the National Storm Center, seems to have revised that position, according to this February MSNBC report:

Tornadoes do happen in February, but a study by Schaefer two years ago found that winter tornadoes in parts of the South occur more frequently and are stronger when there is a La Niña…

Full article, graphs, climate change considerations and links at THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

A stumbling point for me in the practice of Buddhism is optimism.  I do not do optimism.  My thoughts on optimism parallel Ambrose Bierce.

Optimism: The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong… It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

I am particularly prone to pessimism (realism) when it comes to the response of our species to climate change. In reading the parable of the Burning House from the Lotus Sutra, I am tempted to wonder (which is as close as I come to hope).