global warming

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It is cold and rainy outside. Neither of those factored into our choice of Southern California as home. I figured out early on, sometime in prep school, that every science had it own jargon and seemed full of contradictions. By the 8th grade I had pretty much decided that science was the “rowing toward God” that the great (Boston) poetess Anne Sexton was talking about.

It is a way to find the truth, and science is very hard work, indeed. I had figured out that I would never get a handle on more than a tiny corner of it. 
Life science (and later, medicine) seemed an accessible corner of the infinite entity, so I grudgingly accepted a sort of amateur status in the remainder of science. It seemed that even if I spent every waking hour reading, I could never learn enough science. I actually envied Leonardo da Vinci, because in his day, it had been possible for one man to know pretty much everything of the science that was known in all the world. This is why, by the 8th grade, I spent every free moment curled up in one of the window seats of the library at prep school reading the “Scientific American”. Sometimes I would visit scientists at local universities, calling them after I read their work. My parents encouraged me to do this. They seemed like decent, hardworking guys (no women then) amused by having as a fan a girl such as I. One day I went near-hysterical on the streets of Harvard Square when I recognized James Watson (of Watson-Crick double helix fame) wearing a bright blue suit which I gushingly told him was my favorite color.

So I still often go to “Scientific American” to resolve science that is not medicine. The link above will link to a plethora of sources that will help any rational people understand how it being dreadfully cold out, even in California, does not contradict, but actually supports global warming.

Of course I am temporarily freezing in my humble abode and can only turn up my fossil-fuel generated heat, thereby making things worse in the long term, although comfortable in the short term. This has nothing I can see to do with either religion or politics. Religion reveals to us only truths we are capable of understanding. God is Not Dumb. If he had put something about this in the Ten Commandments, nobody could have done much about it anyway. Now, divine means are more subtle, I think. This woman deserves sainthood or the equivalent. Just follow science to find truth. Other roads may simply be too confusing emotional and therefore, misleading.

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I found this one in the general plumbing of news that is the delight of the internet.

If someone in the U.K. thinks that DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide) is safe, then somebody is clearly worried that it is not.

Mosquitoes are very dangerous, and DEET is one of the most powerful ways we have to get rid of mosquitoes. Read more on Deet As An Insecticide…

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Okay, an environmental group based in San Francisco says that 17% of our species are threatened by rising sea levels.

Yeah, I saw “An Inconvenient Truth” when it came out.  Al Gore did the best he could but he is not my choice for a scientific spokesman on global warming.

This being said, he had plenty of enthusiasm and seemed to be real.  My immediate reaction when I saw the film was “Yeah.  This looks like real science.”  I mean, when I was in prep school I actually thought Scientific American was more “fun” than “Seventeen”–  which my mother of blessed memory actually encouraged me to read, thinking it would somehow make me more socially acceptable or maybe even more “normal.” Read more on Global Warming Is Science Not Politics And It Is Affecting Humans…

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No, I’m not being paranoid.  Jumbo squid are showing up in record numbers off the southern California coast.  And these suckers can get mighty big. 

Me, I love squid. To eat, that is.  My husband fixes me some that are not over four inches long — really cute little guys with tentacles. They secrete this inky stuff that makes a sweet and gentle taste for pasta. This is the time of year when folks come to San Diego and take cruises to watch whales.  They go down to Mexico to have their little whale babies because the water is a bit warmer.  I have done one of these cruises myself, and I saw some of the fountains coming out of blowholes and it was pretty awesome.  Me, I always look for the science.  But never did I see a squid – let alone hundreds of even thousands of them – and never did I get face washed by their ink.  The facts — well, we are talking up to six feet long and one hundred pounds.  I used to have at least a dozen little bitty ones with my plate of pasta.  I don’t think these would fit on my plate. Is it only me, generally fearless, or is this starting to sound a little scary?  Hmm, I’d say so.  Increased acidity of the ocean, gigantic squid coming up from the deep, and who knows what else. I am looking very hard for positives.  If people have more squid than they can eat, maybe we can feed the hungry.  Are they like zucchini?  I mean, does their meat get tougher the bigger they get? Read more on California Attacked by Giant Squid!…

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When I lived in Boston, I remember walking by the reflecting pools of the Christian Science Monitor building.  My parents said it was a wonderful newspaper but it was somehow “heavy” or scholarly, so they did not want to dig into it every Sunday. Although, they seemed happy to skim the issues I would bring home after my journeys to downtown Boston.

Recently, they ran a piece about how New York is going underwater.  Not that New York City is alone; there are plenty of cities that are slowly drowning.  There seems to be no sense of urgency whatsoever.  On the travel website above, for example, there is only a go-visit-it-before-it-is underwater kind of feeling.  I suppose it would be really nice to get some views under your eyelids before they disappear. If nothing else, this situation ought to serve to confirm that global warming is real science and not a political construct.  The polar icecaps are melting and sea level communities are sinking.  It might sound slow, but it is really quite fast, and things need to be done.

First, we need to applaud Mayor Bloomberg of New York City.  Last I heard, he was a Republican, and most Republicans believe that global warming is more Democratic propaganda than science.  All these storms upon the earth are sinking us pretty fast.  Bloomberg has appointed a commission to look at what this will do to New Yorkers.  I don’t necessarily believe that commissions actually work, but he is at least trying to do something.  That gets him points in my book. Read more on They Should Only Sink…

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