Odds and Ends, again

I think I’ll do some vacuuming this morning. Put a few more miles on the new machine and enjoy watching it work. And I want to make a stew for tonight. I already have some beans soaking, but do I want a beef stew or a chicken stew?

And I need to spend some time browsing the internet for information on cars. Again. I read a Click and Clack column the other day where an Elder had sought their opinion as to the wisdom of buying a new Honda Civic or a Mini Cooper. My two new favorite authorities said it was the Mini!

And once again the Global Warming wars are heating up. The Right Wingnuts are proclaiming that ‘400 Scientists’ say it ain’t so. That it’s a conspiracy by Al Gore. OK, let’s say it is a conspiracy; what’s the point? What does Al get for it? What’s the goal of this conspiracy?

I was reading an article in the latest Economist all about the volcano named Laki, located in Iceland. It exploded in June of 1783 and caused momentous weather changes all around the world. Thousands of people died from starvation as the crops withered from lack of sunlight and acid rain. And this happened in places as far away as Japan. In the USA, ice floes were reported in the Mississippi River at New Orleans and out into the Gulf. So, think about it. Here was an event that changed weather globally. A natural event. At that time there were no cars. No airplanes. No power plants. And the world population was only a fraction of what it is now. So why is so difficult for us to believe that all of those things have changed our climate in some way? 224 years have passed! We must have done something to this planet in those years.

Maybe those 400 ‘scientists’ should go to Alaska. Newtok, Alaska.

Tiny Newtok, Alaska, against the tide

By Tomas Alex Tizon

Stanley Tom wants to give Sen. Ted Stevens a tour of his Yupik Eskimo village, one of several seeking help to relocate away from shoreline that is rapidly eroding as the climate warms.