Boojum

Lianna: It seems the weather is no longer small talk.

Virtual Imager: Both Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean are interesting candidates. But I should mention that I am not actually a Democrat; I am a slightly disillusioned Green who is in the process of creating a political organization of my own: the Common Sense Alliance. And if all goes well, that may in turn lead to the creation of a political party (the Unity Party) dedicated to tackling the real, day-to-day problems of actual human beings.

Jim: Try to understand: Global warming is indeed a concern of mine--and I think a well-founded one--and I therefore do tend to take offense when I mention it and someone appears to laugh me off. I take it that was not your intent, so I will try not to impute such a motive to you, but you should also be aware that there are large and powerful corporate interests, staunchly supported and abetted by the current administration in Washington, that have no compunctions about spending hundreds of millions of dollars per year sponsoring pseudo-science designed solely to raise false doubts about global warming--a phenomenon accepted today even by most of the same scientists who were formerly inclined to pooh-pooh it--and so maintain the climate of complacent anti-alarmism that allows them to keep right on pumping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at ever-increasing rates. I'm not sure how thoroughly you read Virtual Imager's first post, but you must have noted that she cited a number of facts regarding the clear and present danger presented by this climatic phenomenon, not one of which is in any way refuted or even meaningfully repudiated by the arguments you present. As for those arguments: Jim, the entire Waddell ice shelf--a mass of ice hundreds of feet thick and hundreds of miles in extent--not long ago dissolved into the ocean. This is not shrinkage; this is utter disappearance. And it is absolutely unprecedented in the span of the human species' existence. Observed weather science has of course only existed, as you say, for a relatively few years, but science can and does study evidence of events proceeding hundreds of millions and even billions of years into the past--and nowhere in history or examined prehistory is there any indication of any comparable event. It is true that comparable melt-offs may have occurred during past pole-shifting events, but they have been compensated for by the simultaneous formation of new ice shelves. 1. The emissions from volcanos include some carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, but they also include smoke and ash, which produce an offsetting cooling effect; in fact, if anything, they have tended to cool rather than warm the environment. 2. Sunspots do vary in intensity; however, it is the release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere that has caused degradation of the ozone layer. We have made some laudable strides in reducing such emissions, and these are credited with slowing and partially reversing the damage. But what needs to be understood, and often isn't, is that the earth does indeed maintain a certain natural equilibrium--but that equilibrium can be and is being disrupted by human activities, no matter how much some of us would like to deny it. 1. There are over six and a half billion human beings on this planet, and that figure increases daily. Our industry overspreads the globe even as our roads span its surface, our shipping fills the oceans, and our flights saturate the very skies. And each and every one of our billions of vehicles (note that cars now outnumber people to drive them in the United States) spews tons of greenhouse gases each and every year. That effect is immense and increasing with constant, exponential acceleration. So please do not underestimate human capacity to harm or help our delicately balanced ecosystem. 2. "Warmer by one degree" doesn't sound like anything to worry about--unless you consider the effects produced by one degree of added global warmth occurring over what you accurately note is but a second on the clock of the earth's evolution. The National Resources Defense Council and other environmental-defense organizations have thoroughly documented some of those effects, and it is not illogical to extrapolate from the data available--much as physicists have extrapolated the age and probable origins of the universe from data available to them--continued and accelerating changes to our biosphere. 3. Ice ages and other events are indeed inevitable on a geologic time-scale; that does not, however, absolve us of responsibility for our contributions to armageddon. 4. "The influence of a deity" is not a generally accepted fact but a matter of faith. And that faith can cut both ways: Even as "conservative" Christians in and around the current cabal in Washington would have us believe that "God will take care of everything, so why worry?", equally devout believers argue cogently that, since God has given us dominion over all the earth, the responsibility for its stewardship falls squarely on our shoulders. 5. As I hinted before, the self-healing equilibrium of our planet is not infinite; it is a delicate equilibrium, and that balance can be disrupted. It is easy to say that we are insignificant in the face of what you call "bigger than us factors," but that is a classic cop-out; imagine where we'd be today if we'd said that every time we took a step in societal evolution--and awareness of environmental consequences is just one of the evolutionary steps we are now envisioning. Jim, that's exactly what a lot of our countrymen used to say about Adolf Hitler. I think we need to keep in mind that actions have consequences--and so does inaction.

As we discuss Google's new "Florida" ranking system, it may be worth recalling that Florida doesn't exactly have the best track record where ranking things--such as presidential candidates--is concerned. Maybe Google is using butterfly ballots for its new system, and your problems are the result of hanging chads. Or pregnant ones.

Virtual Imager: Thank you for the compliment on my site. I have not yet written anything on overpopulation, although it is certainly a significant source of humanity's troubles, but it will be among the topics discussed in my "Common Sense on ..." series. Of course, overpopulation would be much less of a problem if we could somehow realize that we are all one species and are in this together for better or for worse. Tagalog is the primary language of the Philippines. Unfortunately, the Filipina who said she was going to provide a translation has since gotten bogged down in other projects and may not be able to proceed for some time. As for getting others to take a peek at the site, I would very much like it, but I am also aware that most people like to read things that they already agree with, so I hold out little hope of winning over the hard-core reactionary element. My hope is to appeal to the great majority out there that has not yet committed to an ideology and is open to reason.

Not "supposed to be," Jim. Are. Don't you read or watch the news? Some of Antarctica's largest ice shelves (such as the Waddell shelf) have been melting and disintegrating into the sea. As far as shoveling snow, it may be quite a while before that changes, but a change of a few degrees can (and currently does) mean the loss of glaciation, radical intensifications of weather patterns and rising sea levels. Oh, and Jim: When the sea level starts rising in earnest, a low-lying two-by-four-mile island in the middle of the ocean is not a place I'd like to be. (In fact, it rather reminds me of a nightmare I recently had. I was riding through a violent and drenching storm in a car driven by my mother [meaning the dream was presumably set in Maui], and she set out along a causeway that at first appeared to cross a smallish lagoon. Only as we went on, the lagoon grew and grew, and soon it was the ocean. And as the water expanded on all horizons, the causeway grew gradually narrower and lower. Soon, the road began to dip into puddles of seawater, and as we went those puddles grew ... and grew. Then we realized--too late, for we could no longer turn back--that the storm was driving the ocean up over the road, or submerging the road; either way, it meant the same. Then the waves began to sweep over the causeway, and the car began to swerve and float and regain the ground and lose it again. And every second, the tempest blew stronger. And then I looked to my right, and saw the wave--a vast and towering mountain of ocean--looming and crashing over us. And then, of course, I awoke.)

Jim: Wasn't it you who said "Google's possessed"?

Thanks, Lianna. I'm glad to hear TCH is working on this "Mail error!" problem and I'm not the only one who experienced it. (Now perhaps I can avoid any more inadvertent double-posts. Thumbs Up )

Virtual Imager: Thank you. It is a common human failing to disbelieve or disregard that which occurs too slowly for us to perceive, and occasionally we need to review the facts if we are to understand what's really happening--and your review was right on target. Two additional points: 1) Global warming does not necessarily manifest in warmer weather; its effects can be quite complex and sometimes paradoxical. For example: The United Kingdom, whose climate has remained artificially warm for its latitude thanks to its placement vis a vis the jet stream, is actually expected to become colder as this century progresses. 2) For an immediate wake-up call on the overall warming issue, examine the records of recent melting of both Antarctic ice caps and glaciers around the world. I hate to say it, but global warming is. It's here, it's now, and it's going to be a while before we can reverse it, so we'd all do well, I think, to take it into account and do everything in our power to help reduce greenhouse emissions and persuade our governments to do the same. (Oh, and Virtual Imager: Come check out my site [www.squort.com]. I think you may find it interesting, even though I haven't posted my global warming page so far. )

Weather History: In 1975 (the last winter I spent in Vermont), I believe the temperature in Key West, Florida, was 20 degrees Fahrenheit. As for this current anomalous weather, I think we're getting a foretaste of the much-discussed global warming.

Lianna: The cross-posting was not intentional. My attempt to post the foregoing as a new topic under Open Discussions was apparently thwarted by a "Mail error!" page, so I added it as a reply here instead, not suspecting that my new-topic post had actually also appeared. Does anyone know why I keep getting these "Mail error!" pages (on at least an intermittent basis) when I try to open a new topic? As you can see, this bug can lead to confusion.

Deparrive.

Does anyone else remember that contest sponsored by Microsplortch a few years ago? The objective was to send in the funniest sentence containing the words "shorts" and "Microsoft." Of course, being me, I saw it too late to participate. What I would have sent in, had I known in time: "Microsoft: the last thing you want your date to think when you take your shorts off." [Note: I couldn't post this as a separate topic because I once again encountered the infamous "Mail error!" page. ]

I wondered if anyone else remembered the contest sponsored by Microsplortch a few years ago: The objective was to send in the funniest entry containing the words "shorts" and "Microsoft." Of course, being me, I saw it too late to participate. The entry I would have sent in, had I been on time: "Microsoft: The last thing you want your date to think when you take your shorts off."

Good for you, Bill. Don't let the MicroBorg assimilate you.

A bit off topic, but hockeypuck's signature reminds me--it's interesting to note how many people here quote that inimitable sage, Homer Simpson.

charle97: Excellent. Thumbs Up (Now, if we can only somehow induce everyone to search Google for "squort," we've both got it made. Of course, that raises further questions--such as exactly what we've got made.)

Jim: Yes, I'm afraid I did say that. And yes, I know I'm heading straight for the punitentiary.

Defunctive. (The opposite of good--in one sense.)

Curiouser and curiouser. I tried twice to post this topic--and was stopped both times by a "Mail error!" page. And yet, here it is now.

Hmm. I'd be glad to offer my opinion as a Mac user--only I'm on dialup, and I doubt my opinion would be too lively or informative once I died of old age waiting for a 47.6 MB movie to download.

Snoopy. (The world-famous attorney.)

Jim: Well, that would accord well with the rumor that Google forgot to pay its exorcist--and got repossessed.

Thanks, Jim. I have now taken the step of asking about this index-updating issue at Google forums. Now we get to see if that helps.

Two annoying apparent forum bugs: 1. Although I have selected "Enable email notification of replies" in each of my posts, for the past few days I have received no such notifications. Is this an ISP issue, or have others experienced the same problem? 2. When I attempted to post a new topic on this subject, I kept getting "Mail Error!" pages.