Okay.
Andy's article got me started on a comment which eventually got too long for the comment box, so I decided to paste my rant here.
There's the theory that global warming is a trend - a pattern - something that happens every so often.
Like the mini ice-age of Napoleon's time and all that.Only not. It's a little warm splotch.
In the mountains, at about 10,000 feet elevation, you can find fossils of sea shells and sharks' teeth. Because there used to be fucking water up there.
Ferns, too. And a few extinct species of laurel and some other succulant, warm-weathery plants whose names elude me right now.
At 10,000 feet. No kidding.
There's still snow up there, right now.
Most of the little Jeep trails still aren't open becuase of snow.
Hell, it snowed a couple weeks ago.
But. It's really hard to deny at this point in time that people as a generic whole have certainly altered our living space.
I have a hard time swallowing the term "we" though. More on that later.
But industry and transport do, undeniably, have their emissions. Inside the city, it's usually several degrees warmer than outside the city.
Thing is, I don't like being accused of stuff. Mebbe it's just me, but it straight-up pisses me off when people accuse me of stuff I didn't do.
Like, say, slavery. I'm 26, female, and mostly Norwegian, with a dash of Swedish and Scots thrown in for good measure.
I didn't betray my fellow African 200 years ago by luring him to a clearing then bonking him over the head with a stick and selling him to the slavers. Oh, and I wasn't a slaver. Ever.
Actually, an ancestor of mine - lad by the name of MacCabe - was more or less enslaved on a plantation right along side those African folks. "Indentured servants" are they called them. Some wretch over across the pond would sign his life over to whomever would pay for his passage to the Americas.
Several thousand shiploads of prisoners were also shipped to "The Colonies" and sold off as laborers.
Lots of white folks were.
People seem to overlook that, though.
People weren't horrible to just African folk back then, they were pretty damn wretched to just about anyone they could be.
And it wasn't my fault.
I didn't kill the Native Americans. Didn't take anything that belonged to them. Don't feel guilty for what happened because dammit, I didn't do it.
A bit callous of me perhaps, but I find in this life, one has to pick their battles. Feeling guilty for something I had no control over ever is not something I want in my little sack of burdens.
But Mel, you're Norwegian. Your people were Vikings and shit.
Yeah, yeah.
But I wasn't. I didn't do it.
It's in no way my fault because I wasn't there.
And even if I was there, the Vikings weren't the only assholes to make their pesence known.
And global warming.
I am fucking sick of being preached at for every plastic bag that ever got caught in the branches of a tree.
The Industrial Revolution was not my doing.
Most of these green bastards are hypocrites anyway. Accusing everyone else as they zip around in their private jets or drive their SUVs oh, but God, they have energy efficient light bulbs, and their toilets use a teaspoon of recycled water to flush away their crap.
Yeah.
I drive a Geo Metro. It gets about 38 miles per gallon. 9 gallon tank.
The fire truck I drive is a little less efficient. But hey, it helps put out the fires that put out wicked-crazy BTUs because for some strange reason, energy-efficient plastic shit burns a hell of a lot hotter, longer and more toxic than plain old wood.
But.
I don't disagree with Tim's response. It's just good manners to try to keep your space clean. No one likes a slob.
Unless he has his own personal jet and gets famous by telling people the sky is falling and we should feel responsible for it.
The people who put us on this pathway are dead and gone.
Without them, our lives would be different, doubtless.
It's not like an episode of Captain Planet where the undeniably bad wench slapped around some baby seals, covered them with oil, then stuffed plastic bags into their lungs while puking hydrochloric acid into their faces and laughing evilly.
No.
It's an unfortunate side effect of us furthering ourselves as a species.
We could be "clean" and wonderful like all the 3rd-world countries out there that have an average of one automobile per 100 people. But then again, they don't have things like modern medicine or the intrawebs.
Our weak would die instead of being put into special schools or on special machines that keep them alive and more or less functional.
"Elderly" would be around the age of 35.
Okay. Kind of done ranting now.
And that said, anyone read the article on the carbon footprint of the Olympic Torch? Struck me as kind of ironic in a way...China's boasting "Green" Olympics. But simply flying the damn torch all over the place for four months will be as horrid to the environment as 153 Americans living out their whole lives as wastefully as the average American does. Or 624 Chinese. Whichever.
http://www.slate.com/id/2188876/
Oh.
One more moment of being trite, I'm afraid.
I can't accept wildfires into the collective of signs of global warming.
They might not help the outcome, but they're not an effect.
Relative humidity has to be low for fire to start.
All those other things require or somehow involve high humidity.
Wildfires are started because for some reason people thing natural wildfires are bad. So they go and put them out.
Which leaves a bit of unburned fuel laying around. Dry sticks, dead leaves, etc.
This accumulates over the years.
Then, you have a dry spell come along and poof!
No more California.
Andy's article got me started on a comment which eventually got too long for the comment box, so I decided to paste my rant here.
There's the theory that global warming is a trend - a pattern - something that happens every so often.
Like the mini ice-age of Napoleon's time and all that.Only not. It's a little warm splotch.
In the mountains, at about 10,000 feet elevation, you can find fossils of sea shells and sharks' teeth. Because there used to be fucking water up there.
Ferns, too. And a few extinct species of laurel and some other succulant, warm-weathery plants whose names elude me right now.
At 10,000 feet. No kidding.
There's still snow up there, right now.
Most of the little Jeep trails still aren't open becuase of snow.
Hell, it snowed a couple weeks ago.
But. It's really hard to deny at this point in time that people as a generic whole have certainly altered our living space.
I have a hard time swallowing the term "we" though. More on that later.
But industry and transport do, undeniably, have their emissions. Inside the city, it's usually several degrees warmer than outside the city.
Thing is, I don't like being accused of stuff. Mebbe it's just me, but it straight-up pisses me off when people accuse me of stuff I didn't do.
Like, say, slavery. I'm 26, female, and mostly Norwegian, with a dash of Swedish and Scots thrown in for good measure.
I didn't betray my fellow African 200 years ago by luring him to a clearing then bonking him over the head with a stick and selling him to the slavers. Oh, and I wasn't a slaver. Ever.
Actually, an ancestor of mine - lad by the name of MacCabe - was more or less enslaved on a plantation right along side those African folks. "Indentured servants" are they called them. Some wretch over across the pond would sign his life over to whomever would pay for his passage to the Americas.
Several thousand shiploads of prisoners were also shipped to "The Colonies" and sold off as laborers.
Lots of white folks were.
People seem to overlook that, though.
People weren't horrible to just African folk back then, they were pretty damn wretched to just about anyone they could be.
And it wasn't my fault.
I didn't kill the Native Americans. Didn't take anything that belonged to them. Don't feel guilty for what happened because dammit, I didn't do it.
A bit callous of me perhaps, but I find in this life, one has to pick their battles. Feeling guilty for something I had no control over ever is not something I want in my little sack of burdens.
But Mel, you're Norwegian. Your people were Vikings and shit.
Yeah, yeah.
But I wasn't. I didn't do it.
It's in no way my fault because I wasn't there.
And even if I was there, the Vikings weren't the only assholes to make their pesence known.
And global warming.
I am fucking sick of being preached at for every plastic bag that ever got caught in the branches of a tree.
The Industrial Revolution was not my doing.
Most of these green bastards are hypocrites anyway. Accusing everyone else as they zip around in their private jets or drive their SUVs oh, but God, they have energy efficient light bulbs, and their toilets use a teaspoon of recycled water to flush away their crap.
Yeah.
I drive a Geo Metro. It gets about 38 miles per gallon. 9 gallon tank.
The fire truck I drive is a little less efficient. But hey, it helps put out the fires that put out wicked-crazy BTUs because for some strange reason, energy-efficient plastic shit burns a hell of a lot hotter, longer and more toxic than plain old wood.
But.
I don't disagree with Tim's response. It's just good manners to try to keep your space clean. No one likes a slob.
Unless he has his own personal jet and gets famous by telling people the sky is falling and we should feel responsible for it.
The people who put us on this pathway are dead and gone.
Without them, our lives would be different, doubtless.
It's not like an episode of Captain Planet where the undeniably bad wench slapped around some baby seals, covered them with oil, then stuffed plastic bags into their lungs while puking hydrochloric acid into their faces and laughing evilly.
No.
It's an unfortunate side effect of us furthering ourselves as a species.
We could be "clean" and wonderful like all the 3rd-world countries out there that have an average of one automobile per 100 people. But then again, they don't have things like modern medicine or the intrawebs.
Our weak would die instead of being put into special schools or on special machines that keep them alive and more or less functional.
"Elderly" would be around the age of 35.
Okay. Kind of done ranting now.
And that said, anyone read the article on the carbon footprint of the Olympic Torch? Struck me as kind of ironic in a way...China's boasting "Green" Olympics. But simply flying the damn torch all over the place for four months will be as horrid to the environment as 153 Americans living out their whole lives as wastefully as the average American does. Or 624 Chinese. Whichever.
http://www.slate.com/id/2188876/
Oh.
One more moment of being trite, I'm afraid.
I can't accept wildfires into the collective of signs of global warming.
They might not help the outcome, but they're not an effect.
Relative humidity has to be low for fire to start.
All those other things require or somehow involve high humidity.
Wildfires are started because for some reason people thing natural wildfires are bad. So they go and put them out.
Which leaves a bit of unburned fuel laying around. Dry sticks, dead leaves, etc.
This accumulates over the years.
Then, you have a dry spell come along and poof!
No more California.
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