Climate Change

Tucson Weather Today

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Climate Change?

Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time (i.e., decades to millions of years). Climate change may refer to a change in average weather conditions, or in the time variation of weather around longer-term average conditions.

People cannot stop Climate Change.

Climate Change is a force of nature.

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This Is Who I Am

What's Climate Change All About?

     

Tucson Weather Today

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Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
--Christopher Morley

On Moyers & Company this last Sunday I heard from atmospheric scientist Katherine Hayhoe about a new outlook on Climate Change and from watching that show I began to give the global warming subject some more serious thought than I had previously.

After considerable research (via Google) on climate change, I have come to an undeniable conclusion; nothing concrete will any time soon be done about it.

One aspect of the whole climate change controversy eludes me, and that is: If climate change exists due to man made interference with the correct balance of gases comprising the Earth's atmosphere, why then do those who have the power to restore the proper balance not do so? And if this is a matter of utmost, perhaps 'supreme' importance to the continuance of mankind as a race, why then do the politically powerful not act to solve the problem... 'immediately?'

It seems to me that those individuals who are leaders of nations, whether long-established kings, self-appointed emperors and dictators, or democratically elected presidents or prime ministers would all jump right in and wield what power they have... lay down the law, - saying the future of the human race is being threatened, and therefore now decree that this is what we must and will do, starting this very instant.

Since nothing, in this threat of absolute devastation, except the futile flapping of political lips mouthing obfuscative rhetoric is being done, then the national leaders are all guilty of either malfeasance or malpractice, or both.

Not so?

Oh... and the solution lies not in raising taxes. That just makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Tax money (easily diverted) does not reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, nor rdoes it lower the average global temperature.

Nothing fruitful is going to get done.

Just watch.

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Did You Know . . .?

A bite from the Brazilian wandering spider can give a man an uncomfortable erection that lasts for hours.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1845, Phineas Wilcox was stabbed to death by fellow Mormons in Nauvoo, Illinois, because he is believed to be a Christian spy. The murder of Wilcox reflected the serious and often violent conflict between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the surrounding communities. Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon Church in 1830, had been living with his followers in Missouri, where they had various conflicts with locals, including an armed skirmish with the state militia. In 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs signed a military order directing that the Mormons be expelled or exterminated: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary, for the public good."

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WORD FOR TODAY

voluminous  [vuh-LOO-muh-nuh s]
adjective
1. forming, filling, or writing a large volume or many volumes :
a voluminous edition.
2. sufficient to fill a volume or volumes :
a voluminous correspondence.
3. of great volume, size, or extent:
voluminous flow of lava.
4. of ample size, extent, or fullness:
voluminous petticoats.
5. having many coils, convolutions, or windings.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

David Copperfield

(born September 16, 1956)

David Copperfield is an American illusionist, and has been described by Forbes as the most commercially successful magician in history.

Jennifer Tilly

(born September 16, 1958)

Jennifer Tilly is an Canadian-American actress and poker player. She is an Academy Award nominee, and a World Series of Poker Ladies' Event bracelet winner. In 1983, Tilly had small roles and had a recurring guest role on Hill Street Blues as Gina Srignoli. She played Frasier Crane's seductive-but-ditzy date on an episode of the fourth season of Cheers and appeared as a similar character on the eleventh season of Frasier.

Edward James "Ed" Begley, Jr. 

(born September 16, 1949)

Ed Begley, Jr. is an American actor and environmentalist. Begley has appeared in hundreds of films, television shows, and stage performances. He is best known for his role as Dr. Victor Ehrlich, on the television series St. Elsewhere and his most recent reality show about green living called Living With Ed on Planet Green.

Kimberly Alexis Bledel

(born September 16, 1981)

Alexis Bledel is an American actress. She is known for her role as Rory Gilmore in The WB/The CW comedy-drama Gilmore Girls. She has since starred in films including Tuck Everlasting, Sin City, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and Post Grad.

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Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
--Albert Einstein

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

Looking At Climate Change

     

Tucson Weather Today

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177 pounds

Maybe more climate activists will think about the climate change not as an international problem to be resolved in an air-conditioned meeting hall, but as a guerrilla war to be fought in the streets.
--Jeff Goodell

Climate Change

Barack Obama said, "I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s beyond fixing," he pledged. "We will be judged as a people, and as a society, and as a country on where we go from here."

And he said, "This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands."

He also said, "Global warming is not just the greatest environmental challenge facing our planet -- it is one of our greatest challenges of any kind."

Yet, in the first five or so years of holding office, besides speaking of and warning about it often, what has President Obama accomplished, physically done about climate change?

Besides warning us about it, what can the president himself do, you might ask.

What is one thing President Obama can do to help reduce carbon emissions? He can be an example to the rest of the world's leaders by immediately grounding Air Force One and limiting his (usually unnecessary) meetings with all of the national presidents, prime ministers, dictators, and holy figureheads to teleconferences. You might think this is an inconsequential step. And that may be so... but it is a 'first' step. It is doing something, not merely talking about doing something.

What Is A Possible Cause Of Man-Made Climate Change?

What Is A Possible Result Of Man-Made Climate Change?

So - Why is nothing being done to limit Man's complicity in climate change?

On the part of the citizenry, nothing is being done because of widespread apathy, innate inertia, and a general unconcern for others... " "Who cares what might happen in the distant future?


Whenever I think about the problem of Global Warming or Climate Change I find myself calling upon my limited understanding of evolution, which from a world view may or may not be at all relevant. Climate Change, if it approaches an imminent catastrophic threat to biological life as we know it, will probably force evolutionary changes in existing life forms (including humans) and bring forth on the land new and better replacement entities.

Wow!

The emergence of Supermen (and maybe Superwomen) -- Think of all the miraculous new powers and additional sensory organs might be added to and used by these newly evolved man- creatures.

Imagine that.

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Did You Know . . .?

Indiana State Prison allows murderers to adopt cats and keep them in their cells.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1860, the first Pony Express mail, traveling by horse and rider relay teams, simultaneously left St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. Ten days later, on April 13, the westbound rider and mail packet completed the approximately 1,800-mile journey and arrived in Sacramento, beating the eastbound packet's arrival in St. Joseph by two days and setting a new standard for speedy mail delivery. Although ultimately short-lived and unprofitable, the Pony Express captivated America's imagination and helped win federal aid for a more economical overland postal system.

The initial cost of Pony Express delivery was $5 for every half-ounce of mail.

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WORD FOR TODAY

retronym
noun
A word or phrase created because an existing term that was once used alone needs to be distinguished from a term referring to a new development, as an analog watch in contrast to digital watch.

Note: I first encountered the word on Jeopardy. --G.C.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

A Special Happy Birthday

Doris Day

Edward Regan "Eddie" Murphy

(born April 3, 1961)

Eddie Murphy is an American comedian and actor. He was a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1980 to 1984. He has received Golden Globe Award nominations for 48 Hrs., Beverly Hills Cop series, Trading Places, and The Nutty Professor. His work as a voice actor includes Thurgood Stubbs in The PJs, Donkey in the Shrek series and the Chinese dragon Mushu in Disney's Mulan. 

Murphy has played multiple roles in Coming to America, Wes Craven's Vampire in Brooklyn, the Nutty Professor films (where he played the title role in two incarnations, plus his father, brother, mother, and grandmother), Bowfinger, Norbit, and Meet Dave.

Jane Morris Goodall

(born April 3, 1934)

Jane Goodall is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 45-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots program and has worked extensively on conservation and animal welfare issues. She has served on the board of the Nonhuman Rights Project since its founding in 1996.

Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom

(Apr 3, 1926 - Jan 27, 1967)

Gus Grissom, was one of the original NASA Project Mercury astronauts and a United States Air Force pilot. He was the second American to fly in space, and the first member of the NASA Astronaut Corps to fly in space twice. Grissom was killed along with fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (then known as Cape Kennedy), Florida. He was the first of the Mercury Seven to die. He was also a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross and, posthumously, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

Jacoba Francisca Maria "Cobie" Smulders

(born April 3, 1982)

Cobie Smulders is a Canadian actress and former model, known for her roles as Robin Scherbatsky on the television series How I Met Your Mother and Maria Hill in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; it's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.
--David Attenborough

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

     

Spring Began Yesterday

Tucson Weather Today

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Yesterday was the first day of Spring but the weather here in Tucson was disappointing; cold winds blew a succession of drizzling rains up and down the streets and across the boulevards of the city. I heard, though, that a great many areas of the nation were favored with abnormally high temperatures. Illinois, Minnesota, and some other states suffered through days and nights of summer like conditions. The news people grabbed onto it to reinforce this as further evidence for man made climate change. They lamented the lack of familiar snow and cold and ice in Northern regions. Who ever heard of such balmy weather in March?

Whine, whine, whine.

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Is there a right way to write? Must one adhere to formalized rules in order to produce a publishable piece of fiction or an acceptable fact filled memoir? It does seem so.

To be considered worthy of appearing in print, it is well established that a submitted manuscript must contain material that a goodly percentage of the population will want to read. Why else would a publisher wish to accept it if not to please a book-buying audience?

But I wonder, if that is so, if that is a commandment chiseled in stone, then why do editors cry out for original writing? And why do the readers themselves grow weary with the same old same old and complain that there is nothing new and exciting available these days?

I am convinced that truly innovative works, especially in the field of creative fiction would, if accepted by publishers, be heartily welcomed by the general public. But sad to say, this will probably not come about. Readers (and publishers) must have their Harry Potters.

Who then might submit new forms of fiction? I can think of a few. Me? Oh no! I am too timid to expose my seemingly shameful 'secret' stuff to the culturally conditioned eyes and minds of the properly educated and morally unforgiving masses of properly compliant law-abiding folks. And so it seems, does another writer of my acquaintance, although he will probably never admit it, to others... nor to himself.

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Once again, using Photoshop Elements 2.0, I merged three pictures I took of the Santa Catalina mountains while facing North at the intersection of Speedway Boulevard and Pantano Street to construct a panoramic view of the range. There is a crown of snow on some of the peaks.

(Click photo for full size view)

The change of lighting intensity caused by altering the little camera's direction relative to the sun for each of the three shots created a triple light variation in the finished product. It was immediately visible to me, but the casual viewer should not notice it. I suppose it could be fixed but I'd rather not spend the time on doing so right now.

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Word For Today

Bombast
arrogant, pompous language

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Although I did not take the picture below, it fascinated me so much that I decided to post it on the blog anyway. The photographer (Dessert Survivor) back home in Indiana has given me permission to do so.

Link to Rensselaer Adventures http://rensselaeradventures.blogspot.com/

The fascination I feel for that glimpse of swampy scenery must be related to some lingering mental whiff of Hoosier boyhood memory. Can't think of a better explanation.

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Happy Birthday

Matthew Broderick

(Bueller . . . Bueller . . . Bueller . . .)

Born March 21, 1962

By the way . . . Matthew Broderick is married to Sarah Jessica Parker

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"Either write something worth reading
or do something worth writing."
--Ben Franklin

What Are Personal Opinions Worth?

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Tucson Weather Today

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There is a serious strip (not a 'comic' strip) regarding Climate Change that should be a 'must read' for any thinking person.

I read it, and even left a comment concerning one panel's use of the term 'comprised of' instead of 'composed of'. Adding of to comprised is incorrect usage, no matter how 'popular' it has become to do so. And yes, that is a personal opinion, for what it's worth.

A few hours later the strip's creator had evidently read my comment (along with other grammar errors reported in the comments) and had made corrections. Good for him.

Now I feel better.

I posted the above on my Writers List certain that surely I'd get some responses. And I did. (Sorry about calling you 'Shirley')

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Regarding the octothorpe The National Post featured an opinion piece that noted:

. . . it was in decline for years. After generations of vigorous life everywhere in the retailing world where numbers were written, it lost out to computerized invoices and receipts that simply ignored its value. In literature, after centuries showing printers where to put spaces, it was abolished by computers that do the same job with the touch of a keyboard.

Okay. But I, for one, still use the octothorpe to mark an extra space between scenes in my novel. Consider this: when the writer ignores the octothorpe and depends only on an extra tap of the return key, when the scene ends at the visual end of a manuscript page and the next scene begins on the monitor's next page, this extra space is unseen by the reader. Below is an example of what I mean:

The story is moving along and we reach the end of the page, and the scene ends here.

Now comes the next scene and it begins at the top of this, the next page.

See what I mean? No way to instantly know one scene ended and another scene began. But consider this:

The story is moving along and we reach the end of the page, and the scene ends here.

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Now the next scene begins here, at the top of this next page.

See what I mean? The trusty old octothorpe has saved the day. The reader seamlessly skipped to the next scene.

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3 QUARKS DAILY has a piece titled Some notes on the grammar of the curry. I was amazed after reading the method used in preparing authentic curry.


Do people actually go to all that trouble just to cook some meat and potatoes? Heck Fire! I was born and raised in Indiana where meat and potatoes (seasoned with only salt and pepper) was the staple of our daily meals. I'm 71 years old now and have never tasted Indian Curry. And given the now precarious state of my aged gastrointestinal tract, I probably never will.

I'm not complaining, though.

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Can anyone make sense of the following sentence taken from from Walter Scott's novel, Rob Roy?

"He's no a'thegither sae void o' sense neither; he has a gloaming sight o' what's reasonable--that is anes and awa'--a glisk and nae mair; but he's crack-brained and cockle-headed about his nipperty-tipperty poetry nonsense--He'll glowr at an auld-warld barkit aik-snag as if it were a queez-maddam in full bearing; and a naked craig, wi' a bum jawing ower't, is unto him as a garden garnisht with flowering knots and choice pot-herbs."

Not me.

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While reading in some obscure source, I happened upon a new word (new to me, that is) -- neologism. Of course, me being me, I delved into the meaning of the word, finally arriving at:

In psychiatry, the term neologism is used to describe the use of words that only have meaning to the person who uses them, independent of their common meaning. This is considered normal in children, but a symptom of thought disorder (indicative of a psychotic mental illness, such as schizophrenia) in adults.

People with autism also may create neologisms. In addition, use of neologisms may also be related to aphasia acquired after brain damage resulting from a stroke or head injury.

Well! I decided immediately that here (suitably adapted) is something I can use in my novel. And I will.

More about neologisms here at Wikipedia.

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Oh! And did you know that a monoglot is a person capable of speaking only a single language?

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